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DAMATURU/MAIDUGURI. — Boko Haram gunmen attacked a Nigerian military base and adjacent police barracks simultaneously in the north-eastern town of Buni Yadi, killing at least 25 security personnel, security sources and a witness said.
The attack late on Monday in Yobe state occurred not far from where the Islamist insurgents shot or burned to death 59 pupils at a boarding school in February.
The militants, whose violent struggle for an Islamic state in northern Nigeria has killed thousands and made them the biggest threat to security in Africa’s top oil-producing state, are still holding more than 200 girls kidnapped on April 14, an act which provoked a storm of international outrage.
A witness and resident of Buni Yadi, who identified himself only as Mustafa for fear of retribution, said the militants arrived in an armoured personnel carrier and six Toyota Hilux pick-up trucks before dismounting and firing into the air.
They fired rocket propelled grenades at both bases.
The witness and two security sources, one in Yobe state and another at the army’s north-east headquarters in Maiduguri, said at least 11 soldiers and 14 police officers, including a female officer, were killed.
The security source in Yobe state said 17 soldiers may have actually died.
The spokesman for defence headquarters was not immediately available for comment.
Yobe police spokesman Nansak Chegwam said he knew of the attack but that the details were sketchy.
In what has become rare for a movement that has killed thousands of civilians in the past year, Boko Harm called out to people on the street not to run away as they had only come for the security forces, Mustafa and the Yobe police source said. — Reuters.
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