Nine soldiers, including an officer in the rank of a lieutenant have been killed in the ongoing confrontation between Nigerian security forces and the rampaging Boko Haram insurgents which escalated on Thursday night.
The insurgents launched a violent siege on selected security formations in Yobe State.
The lieutenant was said to have led his boys to defend the the Police Area Command and was felled by Boko Haram bullets.
The casualty figure on the part of the security forces also included four mobile policemen.
It was learnt that the policemen were buried by an APC as they were shooting the Boko Haram insurgents from a trench.
The source said that the driver of the vehicle did not know that the policemen were in the trench.
The exchange of gunfire between the insurgents and a combined team of soldiers of the Division 3 of the Nigerian Army, the police and operatives of the State Department commenced by 6.30pm and lasted till the early hours of Friday.
At the end of hostilities, the isurgents were said to have killed some soldiers, their wives and their children at a mini army barracks along Maiduguri Road.
The insurgents also bombed the mini barracks, the Police Area Command, Damaturu, the CID, the Mobile Police Base and an office in charge of environment along Guija Road, Damaturu.
It was further learnt that a heavy casualty on the part of the Nigeria police was also “very likely” as the two police formations in the same compound, the Area Command and the CID were bombed by the insurgents.
The source, however, added that the security operatives returned the fire of the insurgents, killing over 50 of them on Thursday night.
The military authorities in charge of the prosecution of the campaign against the insurgents reacted to the latest Boko Haram assault by suspending movement throughout Yobe State.
The spokesman of the 3 Division Special Operations Battalion in Yobe, Lt. Eli Lazarus, said in a statement late Thursday that the Army had imposed a 24-hour curfew in Yobe.
He said that the curfew was meant to intensify military action against the insurgents.
Lazarus appealed to all law abiding citizens to be calm.
“The 3 Division Special Operation Battalion Damaturu hereby imposes a 24-hour curfew across Yobe State with immediate effect. Law abiding citizens are enjoined to remain calm as the battalion steps up its operation against insurgents in the state,” the statement read.
A security source said on Friday that the Special Forces acting on a tip-off killed 13 of the insurgents on their way to Maiduguri.
The source said that all the 13 insurgents were Chadian nationals which confirmed the earlier reports that terrorists from other African countries had aligned forces with the Boko Haram to fight Nigeria.
It was learnt that the current confrontation started with the arrest of two trucks belonging to a foremost industrialist from the northern part of the country (name withheld) at a military checkpoint on Thursday night.
A source said that the drivers of the trucks told the Special Forces that a big bag in one of the trucks belonged to a very senior military officer and should not be searched.
The drivers and their colleagues were said to have displayed a memo purportedly from Defence Headquarters and signed by the said military officer that the bag should not be searched for whatever reason.
It was learnt that the soldiers became more suspicious with the explanation and the memo tendered by the driver and impounded the trucks at the Police Area Command, Guija Road, Damaturu.
It was further said that the drivers and their passengers were consequently detained at the Police Area Command.
The source said that when the security agencies searched the bag, they found a high quantity of military camouflage uniforms and arms and ammunition in it which made them to impound the trucks and detained the drivers and their colleagues.
-Punchng
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