Bomb attacks by members of an Islamist sect targetting a church and a police station in Nigeria's troubled city of Maiduguri killed five people on Tuesday, police said.
"There were attacks by gunmen suspected to be members of Boko Haram in which five people in all were killed and three injured including two policemen," police spokesman Lawal Abdullahi.
He said the attackers "hurled an explosive device into the premises of the police station which went off but did not cause any causalties."
But gunbattles broke out between the police and the attackers "in which the police succeeded in killing three of the gunmen," he said. Two policemen were injured in the shootout.
"In the second attack another group of sect members hurled a bomb apparently targeting St Patrick's (Catholic) church, but missed the target and landed on the street outside," said Abdullahi.
It went off and killed two passers-by and injured another.
Another bomb went off near the same church last week but with no casualties.
On Monday a gunman killed a Wahabbi cleric and imam of a mosque in Biu town who was critical of Boko Haram ideology especially its rejection of Western education and its resort to violence, his neighbours said.
Ibrahim Birkuti was shot by a motorcycle-riding gunman thought to be a member of Boko Haram sect outside his house Biu, 2OO kilometres (120 miles) south of Maiduguri, which is in Borno state.
The sect which launched an uprising in 2009 and has been blamed for dozens of killings in the northeast where it targets security forces, community leaders and government institutions.
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