Gunmen kill two policemen in central Nigeria

KANO, Nigeria (AFP) - Gunmen believed to be Boko Haram members have killed two policemen in central Nigeria where the radical Islamist sect killed dozens of people on Christmas day, police said Thursday.

"The gunmen who rode on a motorcycle shot and killed two policemen watching over a highway and sped away," police spokesman for Niger State Richard Oguche told AFP.

The attack occured on Wednesday in Niger state's town of Lapai, west of the federal capital Abuja.

He said the gunmen were suspected to be part of a gang that raided a prison and freed 119 inmates in nearby Kogi state last week.

Boko Haram claimed it was behind the jail break to free seven of its detained members.

Authorities said at least 25 of the detainees were later captured.

"We believe the attack was in response to the re-arrest of their comrades they set free in the prison raid," Oguche said.

He said police had this week recovered three Kalashnikov rifles in Lapai, raising concern that the area is an Islamists hideout.

Attacks blamed on the sect appear increasing around the central Niger state and its environs.

Nearly 50 people were killed in Christmas Day bomb attacks, most of them on a church in Niger state which borders the capital Abuja. Election offices were also bombed in the same state last year.

Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the Christmas Day attack, as well as last August's bombing of the UN headquarters which killed 25 in the capital.

The sect launched an uprising in 2009 put down by a brutal military assault that left some 800 people dead. After going dormant for about a year, it re-emerged with a series of shootings and bomb blasts.

Its attacks had previously been concentrated in the northeast. But a month ago, it launched its deadliest assault on Kano, the country largest city in the north, leaving 185 dead.