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| A Scene Of Northern Nigeria Violence |
Credit: Associated Press
Separate attacks in northeast
Nigeria targeting a village and a wedding party killed at least eight people
Saturday in a region that remains under near-daily assault by a radical
Islamist sect, authorities said.
In Maiduguri, the spiritual home of
the sect known as Boko Haram, soldiers raided a wedding being held on behalf of
a member of the sect, witnesses said. Boko Haram gunmen guarding the wedding
opened fire on the attacking soldiers, witnesses said.
Witnesses who declined to be named
out of fear of attracting the military or the sect's anger said they saw both
civilians and uniformed soldiers slump to the ground after being shot.
Lt. Col. Sagir Musa, a military
spokesman, said three civilians were killed and four others were wounded in the
attack. Musa said soldiers only began their attack after sect members opened
fire on a military unit watching the site.
"The public is advised to avoid
(any) wedding ... organized by Boko Haram terrorist group," he said.
Late Friday in Taraba state, police
say gunmen wearing military uniforms arrested and shot dead five people in a
remote village.
Taraba state police spokesman Ibiang
Mbaseki said Saturday that witnesses told police the gunmen claimed to come
from Abuja.
The spokesman said the police had no
information about a military operation in the area and would continue to
investigate the killings.
Killings in rural areas often get
blamed on so-called "fake soldiers," attackers who wear
military-style camouflage clothing during assaults. It remains easy to buy uniforms
off the street in Nigeria.
Boko Haram, whose name means
"Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's
largely Muslim north, is blamed for killing more than 480 people — both
Christian and Muslim — this year alone in Nigeria, according to an Associated
Press count.
Diplomats and military officials say
Boko Haram has links with two other al-Qaida-aligned terrorist groups in
Africa. Members of the sect also reportedly have been spotted in northern Mali,
where Tuareg rebels and hardline Islamists seized control over the past month.
In its most recent attack, the sect
claimed a suicide car bombing at the Abuja office of the influential newspaper
ThisDay, as well as a bombing at an office the paper shares with other
publications in Kaduna.
At least seven people were killed in the blasts. A
video released Thursday by Boko Haram promised more attacks against the media
over what it describes as unfair reporting on the group.
