Maiduguri is the epicenter of the eight-year fight against Boko Haram which has been trying to set up so-called Islamic State in the northeast, and has been largely free of violence for the past two years.
The terrorists attacked the city's suburbs on Wednesday night with anti-aircraft guns and several suicide bombers, said Damian Chukwu, police commissioner of Borno State, of which Maiduguri is the capital.
"A total of 13 people were killed in the multiple explosions with 24 persons injured while one person died in the attack (shooting)," he told reporters.
Several buildings were set on fire but the military repulsed the militants after an hour, he said.
Aid workers and witnesses reported explosions and heavy gunfire for at least 45 minutes in the southeastern and southwestern outskirts of the city. Thousands of civilians fled the fighting, according to Reuters witnesses.
More than 20,000 people have been killed in Boko Haram's campaign to establish a caliphate in the Lake Chad.
A further 2.7 million have been displaced, creating one of the world's largest humanitarian emergencies.
Despite the military's success in liberating cities and towns, much of Borno remains off-limits, hampering efforts to deliver food aid to nearly 1.5 million people believed to be on the brink of famine.
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source : Reuters
Thursday
8 June 2017
1:26:40 PM
835180
(AhlulBayt News Agency) - An attack by Boko Haram terrorists on the northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri killed 14 people and wounded 24 others, police said on Thursday, the first official said.