KADUNA, April 26 (Reuters) - Twenty-five people were
killed in a clash between Nigerian security forces and suspected
Islamist Boko Haram militants who robbed a bank and attacked a police
station in northeastern Yobe state, police said on Friday.
The military had earlier said seven people were killed in the shootout on Thursday.
"Five
policemen and 20 gunmen have been confirmed dead and over nine million
Nigerian naira ($56,600) was carted away from a commercial bank," Yobe
State police commissioner Sanusi Rufai said in a statement, adding that
the loot had been recovered.
The Boko Haram sect and
offshoots such as the al Qaeda-linked Ansaru, as well as associated
criminal networks, have posed the main threat to the stability of
Africa's top energy producer since a 2009 amnesty for militants in the
oil-producing Niger Delta calmed violence there.
Thursday's
shootout followed a major military assault on a Boko Haram hideout by
allied forces from Nigeria, Chad and Niger last week that killed dozens
of people and may have been one of the deadliest since the Islamists
launched an uprising in 2009.
The Nigerian Red Cross is
trying to check reports from locals that 187 people died in that battle.
The military says the figure is inflated, but it has barred any access
to aid agencies wanting to investigate. ($1 = 159 naira) (Reporting by
Isaac Abrak; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Alistair Lyon)
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