militants stormed a village in northeast Nigeria and a government warplane opened fire to repel the attackers, local residents and a security source said on Tuesday.
The warplane strafed Boko Haram fighters fleeing in pick-up trucks
after raiding Dille, near Lassa in the south of Borno State, for several
hours on Monday. The attackers fired on inhabitants and burned homes
and churches.
"I counted 26 corpses yesterday evening," one of the residents, Dauda Illiya, told Reuters.
Most of the deaths occurred during the raid but cannon fire from the
government jet also killed at least six civilians - four women and two
children, residents said.
"The pilot was just spraying bullets anywhere ... People were running
here and there. Many people were injured from the bullets," said a local
man, Suleiman Haruna.
Nigeria's defense headquarters
in Abuja did not respond to a request for comment on the incident, but a
security source in Borno State confirmed the deployment of the military
plane.
The residents and
the security source said 20 militants were killed by local vigilantes
who fought back, but this could not be confirmed as witnesses said the
raiders carried off their dead in their trucks.
Nigeria's armed forces are facing a fierce offensive in the northeast
by the Islamist group Boko Haram, whose marauding bands of fighters have
stepped up attacks against towns and villages after kidnapping more
than 200 schoolgirls in April.
That abduction triggered an international outcry and increased support
from Western governments for President Goodluck Jonathan's fight against
Boko Haram, which has killed thousands and abducted hundreds since
launching an uprising in 2009.
Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sinful", says it
wants to set up an Islamic state in Nigeria, whose population is split
between Christians and Muslims.
With the abducted schoolgirls
still missing three months after their kidnap, Jonathan faces criticism
at home and abroad over the deteriorating security situation in Africa's
leading oil producer and biggest economy.
Authorities and military experts fear Boko Haram, which has claimed
bomb attacks in recent months in the capital Abuja and in the coastal
commercial hub Lagos, is seeking to push its insurgency into the more
prosperous south.
BOMBING SUSPECT EXTRADITED
Nigeria's state security services said on Tuesday that a Boko Haram
suspect and national army deserter, Aminu Sadiq Ogwuche, who was sought
for alleged involvement in April 14 and May 1 bomb attacks in the Abuja
area that killed 94 people, had been extradited to Nigeria from Sudan.
"Yes, he's with us", State Security spokewoman Marilyn Ogar told
Reuters. She said Ogwuche was arrested by the international police
agency Interpol in Sudan on a warrant from Nigeria.
The suspected
militants who on Monday attacked Dille, which is not far from the
Cameroon border, were believed to have come from Boko Haram's Sambisa
forest stronghold where at least some of the kidnapped girls are thought
to be held.
On Monday,
Jonathan promised that the missing 219 girls, snatched on April 14 from
Chibok, also in Borno State, would soon return home, teenage Pakistani
activist Malala Yousafzai said after meeting him.
Malala, who became a global celebrity after surviving being shot in the
head by the Taliban for campaigning for girls' education, was visiting
Nigeria to support the international campaign for the release of the
abducted Nigerian students.
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