At least nine school children have been killed in an attack by members of the outlawed Boko Haram Islamist militant group in Nigeria's north-eastern Borno State, media reports citing local officials said on Tuesday.
The attack reportedly targeted children studying in a private school in the Jajeri suburb of the city of Maiduguri. A Boko Haram spokesman said later that the attack was to punish the youngsters for assisting the country's security forces.
Incidentally, Nigerian security forces are currently engaged in an offensive against the Boko Haram in the three north-eastern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. In addition, the government has declared a state of emergency in the region to assist the crackdown on the militant group.
Notably, it was the second such attack on school children by the militant group in recent days. At least 13 people, including high school students and teachers, were killed on Sunday after Boko Haram gunmen attacked a boarding school in Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state.
Nigeria's north-eastern regions are predominantly Muslim, with the south being dominated by Christians. In recent years, the Muslim-dominated north-eastern states have been witnessing a campaign of violence by Boko Haram.
Boko Harm claims that it is fighting the Nigerian government to create an Islamic state in the West African country's north. The outfit is also opposed to Western education which it considers to be anti-Islamic.
The extremist group came into prominence in July 2009, when hundreds of its members were killed in fighting Nigerian security forces in Maiduguri, including its founder-leader Mohammed Yusuf.
The group has carried out numerous bomb and gun-attacks on churches, schools, police stations, military facilities, banks, and liquor outlets in northern Nigeria. More than 3,600 people are believed to have been killed since Boko began its campaign of violence four years ago.
The outlawed group claimed responsibility for the deadly car bomb attack on the U.N. building in Abuja in 2011 as well as a suicide-bomb attack targeting the police headquarters in the Nigerian capital earlier that year, among many others.
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