Boko Haram kills 10 in Borno highway attack

Suspected members of the violent Islamic sect, Boko Haram, who laid siege to the Borno highway, have killed 10 persons. The insurgents also abducted a woman and her two-year- old child.

“We were coming back from Cross Kawa on Monday at about 2.30pm when Boko Haram members appeared in about 10 vehicles, including an LX 470 jeep and opened fire on motorists on the road,” a driver who fled the scene of the incident, Ali Yakub, narrated to newsmen in Maiduguri on Wednesday

Yakub, who revealed that the incident occurred at Madari village on the Maiduguri- Baga Road, said he was badly shaken when he saw “a man who looks like a Chadian in a Hilux vehicle mounted with Multi Purpose Machine gun opening fire on any vehicle he came across.”

Yakub said he was spared by the group who asked where he hailed from and he told them he came from Yusufari and that he was heading to Bindari with his passengers.

He said he witnessed the sect members slaughtering the driver and five passengers of a Peugeot vehicle.

“They also abducted a young woman and her two years old child. A Mercedes Benz driver on top speed was shot at and killed with all the occupants of his car,” Yakub said.

Efforts to reach the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, DSP Gideon Jibrin, for official confirmation were unsuccessful. He could not be reached on the phone.

Meanwhile, some members of the Boko Haram sect have been arrested by the military and members of the youth vigilance group in Maiduguri.

A member of the youth vigilance group, Abba Kolo, told our correspondent in Maiduguri on Wednesday that the suspects, who had disguised themselves as internally displaced persons   from Bama, were arrested by the military and vigilantes from one of the IDPs camps in the town.

He said that the suspected insurgents arrived in Maiduguri along with those that fled Bama during the Boko Haram attack on the town few months back.

He said, “The arrested Boko Haram insurgents, who fled Bama along with IDPs and had formed a syndicate along the Bama Road at Yanshayi opposite Tashan Bama in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, were rounded up by soldiers.”

He said those that were arrested were brought to the headquarters of Sector 3, around Gidan Madara milk shop on Tuesday evening and were later taken to Giwa Barracks within the town.

Ibrahim, who said this was not the first time members of the insurgents who had infiltrated Maiduguri as refugees were arrested, said, “Those who were arrested yesterday (Tuesday) were said to have been seen on several occasions isolating themselves from the rest of the people at the camp.

“Guns were seen with some of them, which made others at the camp to tip off the military and the volunteer youths who subsequently rounded them up.”

A military source, who spoke anonymously, confirmed the arrest to our correspondent. “On receiving information from a member of the public that some people were having illicit meetings at one of the IDPs camp in Maiduguri, we moved in to round them up and we were able to arrest some,” the source said

Source Punch