Two soldiers, two policemen and three suspected members of the Boko Haram sect are believed to have died during a military raid at the weekend on Boko Haram hideout in Damaturu, the police said.

Gunshots were heard at about 6pm on Saturday,

the official curfew time in the Yobe State capital, as members of the Joint Task Force(JTF), who acted on a tip off, raided a hideout believed to have been housing some members of the militant sect.

The police said two of its men died in the shootout between the sect members and security forces.

Both the JTF and the Yobe State police declined to speak on the actual casualty recorded on the side of the security operatives. But a top security officer however, said that apart from three sect members who were killed during the raid, two soldiers also died.

According to the source, “the JTF raid was initially very successful, as two of the sect members found in the hideout were killed in a shootout. A cache of arms were also recovered; but unfortunately for the JTF operatives, and unknown to them, one of the sect members who was hiding somewhere, suddenly opened fire on them, killing two soldiers”.

Yobe State Police Commissioner Patrick Egbuniwe, told reporters on the telephone that: “A gang of armed terrorists attacked two military vehicles of the Joint Task Force (JTF) while patrolling Nayinawa area by 6.30pm on Saturday, using explosives. As the soldiers returned fire to repel the attackers, two of our policemen in the JTF were killed in the fierce gun battle that lasted for three hours in the area.”

Egbuniwe said he could not confirm the casualty figure on the side of the soldiers. He however said two of the gunmen were killed. One of the uncompleted buildings in Nyanya ward of the metropolis was demolished.

via The Nation