National Suspected Boko Haram militants raid northern Christian town

Maiduguri - Suspected Boko Haram militants, who arrived on motorcycles
throwing bombs, raided a mostly Christian town in the northeast after
nightfall on Saturday, residents and a military source said.
Residents said scores of people had been killed in the town of Shani, but a
police source said they had been unable to verify the death toll as
communications to the town had been largely cut off.
"They rode on motorcycles and were more than 30 men. They started
throwing bombs into houses...then the Boko Haram fired shots at people
fleeing," resident Ishaya Brimah told Reuters by phone from a nearby village
on Sunday.
"They set ablaze the police station, houses and a telecom mast...I saw
people fleeing, some bodies on the ground."
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Shani is located in Borno state, the heartland ofgroup Boko Haram's five-
year insurgency, which has displaced more than one million people.
The Sunni jihadist movement is fighting to revive a medieval Islamic
caliphate in Nigeria's north. The group is suspected to be behind Friday's
attack on the central mosque in the second city of Kano, where at least 100
people died.
A shopkeeper in Shani, Shuabu Lawal, said he started hearing explosions at
around 8 pm on Saturday evening.
"A boy ran into my shop and said his father and elder brother had been shot.
He was only wearing shorts, no top and sweating despite the wintry weather.
I shut down my shop immediately, leaving some items outside," Lawal said.
The police source said Shani's police station had been destroyed in the
attack. Militants have already attacked the town twice this year, most
recently in June when at least 11 people were killed and the office of the
electoral commission was burnt.
- Reuters