Gunmen Kill Four Police Officers in Kano

The Police Public Relations Officer, Magaji Musa Majjiya confirmed the attack to Channels TV, saying the attack did take place and that the attackers escaped and no arrest has been made.

“It is true that a team of our police officers on patrol around Yan’ Awaki by Zaria road were attacked this morning, two were killed and one was injured during the attack.”

A police officer on the scene after the attack, who declined to be named said the gunmen ambushed the patrol vehicle before escaping on motorcycles – a classic tactic of Islamist sect Boko Haram.

After a surge in fighting around the turn of the year, there have been fewer assaults by the Islamist militants in the past two weeks, although they remain the biggest security threat to Africa’s top oil producer.

“Four police officers attached to the Kano police command were shot dead today by suspected terrorists of the Boko Haram sect, near the Angwa-Ukwu police checkpoint,” the police officer said. “They escaped on their motorbikes.”

The attack came less than a day after two policeman were killed on Monday at a checkpoint elsewhere in Kano.

The sect has forged links over the years with international jihadists in Mali and Niger, including al Qaeda’s north African wing and Nigerian officials fear the country’s involvement in a proposed intervention force to fight Islamists in Mali could inflame its own Islamist insurgency.

Boko Haram’s violence remains focused mostly on security forces in the northeast, although its attacks have spread across the north and to the capital Abuja.

A senior Boko Haram commander blamed for organizing several suicide bombings; Mohammed Zingina, was captured on Sunday in Maiduguri in the northeast where the sect’s headquarters lie.

The government has promised rewards for information on some Boko Haram members that could lead to their arrest. Zingina was on that list.

Another, emerging group called Ansaru known to have had ties with Boko Haram, claimed an attack on a police barracks in the capital Abuja in November, where it said hundreds of prisoners were released.

The group, labeled a terrorist organization by Britain, has also said it was behind the kidnapping of a French national at the end of last year who is still missing.