Suspected members of an Islamist sect that launched an uprising last year have killed a retired police officer and wounded five other people, the latest of such attacks in Nigeria’s north, police said Monday.
Motorcycle-riding gunmen opened fire on the victims in three separate incidents on Sunday in and around the northern city of Maiduguri, the centre of the 2009 uprising, said Borno state police commissioner Ibrahim Abdu.
“We had three incidents in Borno state yesterday, which suggests that Boko Haram is on the attack,” Abdu told AFP, referring to the sect also known as the Nigerian Taliban.
“We strongly suspect they are responsible for the spate of hit-and-run attacks we have been witnessing in the last few weeks.”
Police in Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north said recently that they suspected the sect was behind at least seven other similar killings that have occurred in recent months.
In one incident on Sunday in the town of Bama outside Maiduguri, gunmen shot and killed a retired police officer.
The two other incidents occurred in Maiduguri, including one that saw a local chief shot and wounded outside his house along with two other people.
Abdu said local chiefs helped police locate Boko Haram members after the uprising and the suspects may have targeted him because of that.
Two people were also shot and wounded outside their home in another part of town on Sunday. Police have not made any arrests.
Last year’s uprising by the sect began with attacks on police posts. It was crushed by a police and military assault, with hundreds eventually killed and the sect’s headquarters and mosque left in ruins.
Boko Haram means “Western education is sin” in local Hausa dialect.
Sep72010