Gunmen kill secret police officer in Nigeria

KANO, Nigeria (AFP) - Gunmen on Monday shot dead a Nigeria secret police officer at a barber's shop in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, a senior official said.

"Yes, he was killed today (Monday). And that is all I can tell you for now," Ahmed Abdulhamid, the chief of secret police in Maiduguri, said on the phone without giving details.

Some security sources said the secret police officer was attached to a special military unit deployed to fight the insurgency of Boko Haram Islamist sect.

Residents of Bayan district of the city where the shooting took place said the officer was having a haircut when two gunmen stepped into the shop and shot him dead before fleeing.

Gunmen shot dead a local government official at his house in in the same area in Maiduguri on Sunday. The gunmen fled with his car and remained at large.

Boko Haram has carried out scores of attacks, mainly in northern Nigeria, as part of its increasingly deadly insurgency.

The sect's insurgency has raised deep concern in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and largest oil producer roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominantly Christian south.

An attempt to hold indirect talks between the group and the government in March appears to have collapsed, with a mediator pulling out over leaks to the media and a purported Boko Haram spokesman saying they could not trust the government.