Armed extremists killed dozens of people in Nigeria

Gunmen killed at least 25 construction workers during an ambush on Thursday in the town of Sabon Gari in Borno State, a senior police official at the Borno State Police Command told The Associated Press. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. Nigerian authorities often refuse to publicly confirm the death toll in the attacks, citing security reasons.

– It is a devastating loss, and the clues clearly point to Boko Haram, which has been rejecting development projects in these areas for a long time – said a police official.

Boko Haram, Nigeria’s homegrown extremists, took up arms in 2009 to fight Western education and impose its own version of the law.

Now the insurgency has expanded to include a separate branch of ISIS known as ISWAP. The conflict has spread to Nigeria’s northern neighbors, including Niger, killing about 35,000 civilians and displacing more than 2 million people, according to the United Nations.

Abdurrahman Buni, a senior officer in the Civilian Joint Task Force, a volunteer watchdog that helps the army fight extremists and armed gangs, confirmed that at least 25 workers were killed during Thursday’s attack.

Buni and a police official said the extremists, backed by armed drones, had also attacked a military base in a separate attack in the same city hours earlier. A police official said nine soldiers and two members of the civilian guard were killed, while around 16 wounded members of the security forces were evacuated for medical treatment after intense gunfire.

It is not clear whether the attack on the base was carried out by Boko Haram or rival ISWAP, both of which are active in the region.

Nigeria is in the midst of a complex security crisis, with an insurgency by militant groups in the northeast and a rise in kidnappings for ransom in the northwest and north-central regions in recent months.

(Vijesti.ba)