SUSPECTED members of the Yusufiyya sect, popularly known as Boko Haram, yesterday attacked and destroyed the Damboa Divisional police headquarters, police barracks and the First Bank branch in Damboa local government area of Borno state, killing four policemen, one prison warden and eight civilians.
The Islamists sect, it was gathered, came in three vehicles with Kalashnikov rifles and explosives, used in setting the police station ablaze, before attacking the bank and the police barracks that accommodate over 100 policemen in Damboa.
Confirming the incident, the Borno state commissioner of police, Alhaji Mohammed Jinjiri Abubakar, in a briefing at the police headquarters in Maiduguri , said members of the Boko Haram numbering about 70 came in three different vehicles, attacked the police station and threw some explosive devices on the station.
He said members of the sect attacked a church in Mashamari ward of the metropolis but were over powered by the superior gun power of the army, where they abandoned one AK47 riffle, motorcycle and three GSM phones.
The CP said “I think because they know that the security have been beefed up within the metropolis and they could not succeed that is why they moved to Damboa local government area of the state to carry out their dastardly act.”
Alhaji Abubakar noted that he had deployed four units of mobile policemen and the army also deployed one platoon of soldiers to Damba to assist the police in combing Damboa town and its environs, so as to fish out the hoodlums.
The police boss who was visibly disturbed, said that he would personally lead the operations in Damboa town and vowed to track down the culprits no matter how long.
On whether there was casualty or not, the CP said that he could not tell, as he was yet to visit Damboa to find out things for himself, but assured that he would brief newsmen immediately he came back.
He said the police had made some arrests in connection with yesterday’s church attack in Mashamari ward, but that he would properly address the press on any development.
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