The Police in Kano have confirmed the killing in different gun battles yesterday, of 17 people suspected to be members of Boko Haram.
The Police in Kano have confirmed the killing in different gun battles yesterday, of 17 people suspected to be members of Boko Haram.
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Mr. Ibrahim K. Idris, the Commissioner of Police, said that three of the militants were arrested, but also that a police corporal, Saidu Umar, was killed.
Mr. Idris was addressing reporters at the Police Headquarters. He said the gun duels took place at different locations where the militant elements members had planned coordinated attacks, including Dala Police Division, Jakara Police Barracks, Goron Dutse Prison Yard, 52 Squadron Challawa and Junior Secondary School Sabuwar Doka in Ungogo Local Government Area.
At Dala Police Division, about 30 insurgents attacked Police men on duty with assault rifles and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), he said.
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“During the gun duel, the superior power of police killed 10 of the extremists. They abandoned their motor vehicles—a Golf Car, Bus containing large quantity of drugs and syringes, Toyota Corolla, cash sum of N100, 000, 10 undetonated explosives and some drugs for First Aid.
He said they after the militants were repelled, his men recovered three AK 47 rifles, eight magazines with hundreds of live ammunitions from the militants. One of the police officers, Sergeant Baba Williams, was wounded in the leg.
In their attack at Jakara, the insurgents threw several IEDs. They shattered part of the Police Out-Post, which has been under key and lock since last December. In an exchange of gun shots, two of the sect members were killed.
Similarly, five of the attackers were killed during a serious fight with the police at 52 Sqaudron in Challawa, Mr. Idris said.
There were no casualties of damage at Goron Dutse Prison.
Mr. Idris said that there were explosions at Sabuwar Abuja in Panshekara area, and at Sabuwar Doka Junior Secondary School in a suburb of Ungogo, where policemen who rushed there discovered that one class room to have been partially damaged by the blast. One Boko Haram member was killed at a private residentce.
The commissioner of Police identified items recovered from the sect members at the different locations to include five assault rifles, 14 IEDs, 220 rounds of live ammunition, five motor vehicles, three motorcycles, large quantities of drugs and syringes, and the sum of N100,000.
In a press statement, the spokesman of the Kano Joint Security Task Force (JTF), Lt. Ikedichi Iweha compared yesterday’s events to those of the 20 January 2012 attacks in the state.
He said that the attackers arrived at at about 1810Hrs, detonating multiple IEDs at Goron Dutse and Dala general areas, and eventually gained access to the Dala Police Division outpost were they killed a Police Corporal. Their plans to loot the arms store were however foiled by the swift response of security forces.
In the intense shootout that followed, seven of the terrorists were killed and several wounded, he said. He said efforts were ongoing to apprehend those of the attackers with gunshot wounds as well as other unexploded IEDs.
On the prison break in Damaturu, the capital of Yobe State where about 40 inmates were freed, Lt. Iweha said efforts were on to track them down, and that JTF believes that the intent of the terrorists was to first destabilize the closest reinforcement to the Goron Dutse prisons and then storm the prison for a possible prison break.
“This latest incidence once again reveals that members of the terrorist’s sect would stop at nothing to destabilize the peace of the state and commercial activities which are slowly picking up. All efforts must collectively be on deck to root out these terrorists,” he said.
He thanked the people of Kano for their cooperation and urged them to be vigilant and to continue to provide information on suspicious persons within the communities.
“It will be recalled that the same terrorist gangs having failed in their attempt to destabilize Kano earlier went and planted IED in a mosque in Fagge just before last Friday’s prayers with an intent to invoke religious conflicts among the adherents of the two major religions thereby achieving their aim of destabilizing the state,” he said. “The JTF will continue to treat all information given with the utmost confidentiality.”
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