ABUJA, Nigeria — A shootout between Islamist extremists and Nigerian security forces rocked the nation’s capital early Friday, according to a Nigerian security official.
It is the first violence from the Islamist radicals of Boko Haram in Abuja this year and highlights Nigeria’s continuing security problems from the extremists.
The gunfight in the capital occurred as Nigerian officials were recovering bodies in Benisheik, in northern Nigeria, where 143 civilians were killed by suspected Boko Haram fighters. The killings in Benisheik took place Tuesday and represent one of the highest death tolls in the Islamist uprising in northeast Nigeria.
Together, the gunfight in the capital and the mass killings in the northeast challenge the Nigerian military’s insistence that it is winning the war against the extremists since a state of emergency was declared May 14.
The Islamist radicals of Boko Haram want to enforce strict religious sharia law throughout Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, with more than 160 million people almost equally divided between Muslims and Christians. Boko Haram is blamed for violent attacks that have killed nearly 2,000 in Nigeria since 2011.
The shooting in the capital broke out early Friday when a security team was searching for hidden weapons and was fired upon by members of Boko Haram, said a statement issued by Marilyn Ogar, deputy director of the Department of State Services.
Two arrested members of Boko Haram had led the security team to a site near the residential compound for legislators where they said arms were buried, Ogar said.
“No sooner had the team commenced digging for the arms than they came under heavy gunfire attack by other Boko Haram elements,” said Ogar’s statement.
Ogar said an undisclosed number of people were injured, but did not say there had been any deaths. She said 12 people were arrested.
Boko Haram’s violence occurs mostly in Nigeria’s northern areas, although there have been some serious incidents in the capital.
In August 2011, a Boko Haram suicide car bomb exploded at the United Nations offices in Abuja, killing 24 people. In April 2012, the Abuja office of the newspaper This Day was hit by a car bomb and two people were killed.
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