Police arrest 13 suspected Boko Haram members

The Borno State police command said yesterday that it had arrested 13 suspects in connection with last week's killings in Maiduguri.

The suspected Boko Haram militants reportedly killed at least four people in separate attacks on Wednesday and Friday in Maiduguri.

Confirming the arrest, the command's Police Public Relations Officer Lawal Abdullahi said in Maiduguri that 11 suspects were arrested in connection with the Wednesday's killing, ``I want to inform you that we have already made a number of arrests in connection with the killings.

``We have arrested 11 suspects in relation to the Wednesday's killing, we have also arrested two suspects in connection to the Friday's killings,'' Mr Abdullahi said.

He pointed out that the arrests were based on information gathered by the police on the incidences, claiming that ``we have been able to record a breakthrough that will eventually lead to uncovering the root of the numerous killings in the town in recent times." The brother of the ward head of Ngarnam, in the state, simply called Baba Gana was killed on Wednesday by some suspected Boko Haram militants who took him for the ward head, while on Friday, three persons including a six year old boy, Musa Amin were killed near a Friday Mosque at Layin Makaranta in Gumari ward behind the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH).

The victims are 35-year-old Yunus Abba, and his friend simply called Ibrahim both part II Arabic students of the University of Maiduguri and an unnamed police officer who was shot in Umarari late on Friday near his house in the metropolis. About 30 persons have so far been killed by the suspected militants since July when they began sporadic attacks on individuals believed to have played active part in quelling last year's Yusufiya insurgence in Maiduguri.

Although security checks had been put in place to checkmate their activities, the militants appeared so far to have beaten the security agents, especially with their guerrilla tactics.