Boko Haram militants have killed dozens of members of the security forces in two attacks in northern #Nigeria, officials have said.
The Reuters news agency said that gunmen from the extremist Islamic group attacked a Nigerian military base and adjacent police barracks simultaneously in the northeastern town of Buni Yadi.
The exact number of deaths is unclear, with one group of officials saying it is 54 and security sources saying at least 31.
It comes as pressure mounts on Nigeria to free more than 200 #schoolgirls held captive by Boko Haram, after the military ruled out an armed rescue operation.
The Nigerian military claims it knows where the girls are, but says it is too dangerous to rescue them. In the past, Nigerian militants have killed those they are holding during rescue operations.
The #US State Department on Tuesday evening (UK time) said it did not have information which could "support Nigeria's claim it has located the kidnapped girls".
A witness and resident of Buni Yadi, who identified himself only as Mustafa, said the militants in the latest attack arrived in an armoured personnel carrier and six Toyota Hilux pickup trucks.
They dismounted and fired into the air before launching rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) at both bases.
A senior security source in Yobe state said 17 soldiers and 14 police officers, including a female police officer, were confirmed to have been killed.
In a rare act for a movement that has killed thousands of civilians in the past year, the militants apparently called out to people on the street not to run away as they had only come for the security forces, Mustafa and the Yobe police source said.
The latest attacks were in the same town where 59 Nigerian secondary school pupils were killed by suspected Boko Haram Islamists as they slept in student housing.
Explosives were thrown into accommodation of the Federal Government College in the Yobe state town and rooms sprayed with gunfire in February.
Boko Haram, which means "Western education is a sin" in the northern Hausa language, is believed to be using hilly terrain on the Cameroon border as its base.
Cameroon has deployed around 1,000 troops and armoured vehicles to its border region with Nigeria as it steps up its military presence to counter the rising threat. Sky News
The Reuters news agency said that gunmen from the extremist Islamic group attacked a Nigerian military base and adjacent police barracks simultaneously in the northeastern town of Buni Yadi.
The exact number of deaths is unclear, with one group of officials saying it is 54 and security sources saying at least 31.
It comes as pressure mounts on Nigeria to free more than 200 #schoolgirls held captive by Boko Haram, after the military ruled out an armed rescue operation.
The Nigerian military claims it knows where the girls are, but says it is too dangerous to rescue them. In the past, Nigerian militants have killed those they are holding during rescue operations.
The #US State Department on Tuesday evening (UK time) said it did not have information which could "support Nigeria's claim it has located the kidnapped girls".
A witness and resident of Buni Yadi, who identified himself only as Mustafa, said the militants in the latest attack arrived in an armoured personnel carrier and six Toyota Hilux pickup trucks.
They dismounted and fired into the air before launching rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) at both bases.
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| Some of the locations of Boko Haram attacks |
In a rare act for a movement that has killed thousands of civilians in the past year, the militants apparently called out to people on the street not to run away as they had only come for the security forces, Mustafa and the Yobe police source said.
The latest attacks were in the same town where 59 Nigerian secondary school pupils were killed by suspected Boko Haram Islamists as they slept in student housing.
Explosives were thrown into accommodation of the Federal Government College in the Yobe state town and rooms sprayed with gunfire in February.
Boko Haram, which means "Western education is a sin" in the northern Hausa language, is believed to be using hilly terrain on the Cameroon border as its base.
Cameroon has deployed around 1,000 troops and armoured vehicles to its border region with Nigeria as it steps up its military presence to counter the rising threat. Sky News
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