Gunmen attacked a police station and a bank in northern Nigeria on Thursday, leaving four people dead and one of the assailants’ hands blown off when a bomb he was holding exploded, police said.
The simultaneous attacks occurred in the town of Darazo, with those killed including two assailants, a security guard at the bank and a civilian who was at the police station, police commissioner Abdulkadir Mohammed Indabawa said.
Authorities said they were unsure who was behind the attacks in Bauchi state, but a series of similar raids in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north has been blamed on an Islamist sect known as Boko Haram.
“We have one of the attackers with us whose hand was blown off when a homemade bomb exploded in his hand before he could throw it into the police station,” the commissioner said. “He is in hospital being treated.”
About 15 assailants were involved in the attacks, he said. Police shot and killed two of them at the police station.
The attackers wounded two officers at the station and killed a civilian who was there at the time, said Indabawa.
Gunmen killed a security guard at the bank before police stationed in the area repelled them, according to the commissioner.
Another bomb, an AK-47 rifle and ammunition was also recovered from the attackers at the police station, said Indabawa.
The Islamist sect, which launched an uprising in 2009, has been blamed for dozens of hit-and-run shootings and other attacks in northern Nigeria in recent months.
It also claimed responsibility for the recent assassination of a high-profile candidate for governor ahead of April elections.
A military assault that put down the 2009 uprising left hundreds dead.
Feb182011