100 killed in battle with Nigeria Islamists

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Bystanders look at vandalised buildings in Bauchi, northern Nigeria. — AFP

BAUCHI, July 28 (AFP): More than 100 people were killed during clashes between Islamist extremists and security forces in a city in northeastern Nigeria, witnesses said Tuesday.
Authorities had not confirmed the toll following the clashes in Maiduguri, which occurred after fighting erupted at the weekend between extremists in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north and authorities.
"Over 100 dead bodies have been deposited at the premises of the police headquarters and more are still being brought in," Ibrahim Bala, a local radio journalist, said. Another local journalist said she counted more than 100 bodies that were dumped on the grounds of the police station in the city, the capital of Borno state.
Nigeria's security forces Monday fought gun battles with radical Islamists who went on a rampage torching churches, police posts and government buildings in four northern states.
In Borno state, heavily armed Islamist rebels torched a police headquarters, a church and a customs office in the border town of Gamboru-Ngala overnight before moving to the state capital Maiduguri where battles ran into the afternoon.
A Nigerian Islamist sect styled on Afghanistan's Taliban burnt down a central prison in Maiduguri, two police stations, several churches, a government primary school and offices of a state unemployment bureau.