Islamist militants have again confronted the police in Sheka, Kano, just five days after they inflicted an unprecedented attack on security installations in the city, leaving over 200 dead.
Unconfirmed reports say that the Sheka Police Station has been razed down, and that residents in the area have fled.
Guns boomed again in Kano yesterday.
Security agents stormed a Boko Haram hideout at Tsamiya Boka in the beleaguered city and engaged the sect members in a gun duel, which lasted for over four hours.
The battle raged all night till about 5a.m, residents said. When all went quiet, two suspected “key” Boko Haram members lay dead. A military officer was feared dead.
The dead included a man the authorities believed to be a sponsor of the sect, Uzairu Abba Abdullahi, a textile merchant and his wife.
Terrified residents described the gunshots they heard as “music of war”.
“Let me tell you, from midnight till 5 a.m., we could not sleep. A neighbour of mine who has high blood pressure collapsed. He was revived this morning,” a resident of Tsammiya Boka, who does not want his name in print, told our correspondent on the telephone.
A security source said many members of the sect were arrested.
Commissioner of Police Ibrahim Idris merely said “there is re-enforcement, and we are on ground”. He advised residents to go about their normal duties and report any suspicious movement to the police.
Residents relieved the fighting.
“They came in large numbers. Some of them stayed on the main road while others came in through the alley. They began shooting, and he fired back... This was followed by a barrage of gunfire by the security men,” a neighbour, Mohammed Maikubi Bala said.
Empty bullet shells lay strewn in a pool of blood just a few steps into the house. A man described as the killed suspect’s cousin squatted near the blood. Outside, a woman said to be his aunt was sobbing.
“I was called and told that my brother and his wife had been shot. He was a simple man known to be peaceful and as far as I know, he has never been questioned by the security over any links with Boko Haram,” said cousin Shehu Idris.
A car in the driveway was riddled with bullets and its windshield smashed.
Relatives and a crowd of curious neighbours mingled outside before police came to search the house.
Explosions were heard, but it was not clear where the sound emanated from, although a resident suggested there was use of heavy machine guns during the raid.
“Everybody in the neighbourhood was in fear. We couldn’t sleep,” said a man who lives a few houses away.
Residents had feared the city was under fresh attacks, just days after co-ordinated gun-and-bomb attacks on Friday killed 185 people, more than two dozen of them policemen, in Boko Haram’s deadliest ever operation.
Boko Haram has killed no fewer than 935 people since it launched an uprising in 2009. The figure includes more than 250 this month alone, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.
Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sinful”, is loosely modelled on Afghanistan’s Taliban. It has claimed responsibility for bombing churches, police stations, military facilities, banks and beer parlours in the north.
The sect focuses its attacks mostly on the police, military and government, but has increased its attacks on Christian institutions. It says it is fighting enemies who have wronged its members through violence, arrests or economic neglect and corruption.
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