Death toll in Nigerian gun battles hits 18

prison across three cities late Tuesday, sparking responses from security forces, with the heaviest fighting concentrated in Kano, Nigeria’s second largest city and the largest in the north.
No group claimed the raids, but the violence was likely to be blamed on Boko Haram Islamists, responsible for more than 1,000 deaths in Nigeria since mid-2009.
The militants launched gun and bomb attacks on Kano’s Dala, Panshekara and Challawa police posts late Tuesday, state police commissioner Ibrahim Idris said. The Goron Dutse prison was also targeted.
“All these attacks were repelled,” he said.
“A total of 17 extremists were killed by our men. We lost a police corporal.”
He added that three suspects were arrested and were being interrogated, while officers recovered 14 improvised explosive devices as well as rifles, ammunition and vehicles following the clashes.
In Taraba state, residents said gunfire and explosions broke out late Tuesday and continued into yesterday morning. A police spokesman confirmed there was an attack on a regional police headquarters.
Taraba is located near northeastern states badly shaken by Boko Haram violence. It also neighbours Plateau state, hit by waves of ethnic violence as well as Islamist attacks.
The Islamist group’s insurgency, concentrated in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north, has frequently targeted the security forces, though the group has attacked churches and other symbols of authority.
It has recently taken to attacking Christians worshipping on Sundays, leading to deadly reprisal violence from Christian mobs in the city of Kaduna earlier this month, sparking fears of wider unrest.
On Sunday, President Goodluck Jonathan said Boko Haram was seeking to incite a religious crisis by attacking churches in an attempt to destabilise the government.
President Jonathan, who has come under heavy criticism in recent days over the spiralling violence, described how the group had moved from targeting local rivals to government institutions and now churches. — AFP.