A military official on Sunday said that 17 people, including a 13-year-old boy, were killed during a military and police operation against a radical Muslim sect in Nigeria's restive north-east.
Major General Jack Nwachukwu Nwaogbo told journalists in the city of Maiduguri that a 13-year-old boy, five other civilians and 11 suspected members of a radical sect locally known as Boko Haram were killed during the operation on Saturday evening.
He declined to comment on how they died. Usman Abdullahi, the 36-year-old brother of a victim, said soldiers chased people in the streets for hours and shot at them. He said soldiers accused them of being sect members.
Nwaogbo said security forces launched a search operation after two suspected members threw two home-made bombs at patrol cars from a moving bus. He said the blasts injured five soldiers.
An activist group, the Civil Rights Congress of Nigeria, said in a statement Sunday that the war against Boko Haram ``must be done within the ambit of the law and constitution.'
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