MAIDUGURI, Nigeria: Gunmen killed 23 people in northern Nigeria in attacks that appeared to target gamblers and people selling 'forbidden' meat that militants disapprove of, officials and locals said on Tuesday.
In the deadliest attack, late on Monday, gunmen opened fire at a market in the town of Damboa, targeting local hunters who sell bush meat from animals such as monkeys and pigs, a local official said.
"Gunmen suspected to be members of BH (Boko Haram) came to the town market and shot dead 13 local hunters on the spot while five others died from their injuries at the hospital," Alhaji Abba Ahmed said. "They came to the market in a Volkswagen Golf car, carried out the operation and left." In a separate attack in the north's biggest city of Kano, some 500 km (310 miles) west of Damboa, suspected Boko Haram members riding on motorbikes shot dead five people playing an outdoor board game, witnesses and a hospital source who received the bodies said. Two others were wounded.
Damboa is in the remote northeast, the sect's heartland near the borders with Niger, Cameroon and Chad.
Nigeria plans to deploy around 1,200 troops as part of a West African intervention force to combat militants occupying the north of Mali, and officials fear Nigeria's involvement could further inflame its own insurgency.
President Goodluck Jonathan told Reuters in Geneva on Tuesday that tackling global terrorists is in Nigeria's interest because of the links with those in the desert states to the north, like Mali.
Suspected rebels kill 23 in two Nigeria attacks
