Gunmen kill 4 policemen in restive Nigerian city

Police did not speculate on the identity of the attackers, but said 15 suspects were arrested after the assault. By AFP Graphic (AFP Graphic)

KANO, Nigeria (AFP) - Gunmen shot dead four policemen Thursday near the home of Nigeria's police chief in the northern city of Kano where Islamists killed dozens last month, a police source and a medic said.

"Four policemen have been killed in an attack this morning by unknown gunmen on a police checkpoint not far from the IG's house," the source said, referring to the police Inspector General's home.

A hospital source said four bodies of men in police uniform were taken to a hospital morgue after the attack. An AFP reporter saw the bodies of four policemen with gunshot wounds inside the mortuary.

"All the four policemen were brought in this morning. As you can see they all have gunshot wounds," a morgue attendant at Kano's largest government hospital, Murtala Mohammed, said.

In a statement, Kano State police spokesman Magaji Majia said "unknown gunmen on four motorcycles attacked our policemen on foot patrol. As a result of the attack, two died on the spot while two were injured."

The attack occurred a few hundred metres (yards) from the private home of Muhammad Abubakar, who was appointed Nigeria's new police chief last month.

Abubakar took over the police helm after his predecessor was sacked following the escape from police custody of a key Boko Haram suspect.

Police did not speculate on the identity of the Thursday attackers, but said 15 suspects were arrested after the assault.

The Islamic sect Boko Haram, which staged coordinated gun and bomb assaults in Kano on January 20, killed at least 185 people in what was the deadliest of a string of recent assaults in northern Nigeria.

There have since been several smaller attacks in the city.

On Wednesday gunmen attacked a military checkpoint in Kano and shot and killed two policemen in central Niger state.