Gunmen shoot dead at least five in Nigeria: official

KANO, Nigeria (AFP) - Gunmen on Thursday shot dead at least five people, including a policeman, in two separate attacks in northern Nigeria, the police and army said.

"I can confirm that three people, including a police constable, were shot dead by four unknown gunmen riding on two motorcycles at an abandoned factory in Sharada industrial area of Kano," state police spokesman Rilwanu Dutse, told AFP.

Dutse said that the gunmen drove into the factory at 5:40 pm (1640 GMT) and shot dead their victims.

"Two died on the spot while the third person died in the hospital. The police have deployed in the area in search of the hitmen," he said.

Although he did not name any individuals or groups responsible for the killings, Islamist sect Boko Haram has been known to carry out drive-by shootings in Kano, the largest city in northern Nigeria.

In the second attack, which took place in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state and base of the Islamist sect, an army spokesman said that two traders were shot dead by gunmen who fired shots at them in a major market in the city.

"I was informed of an attack in 'Monday Market' by some gunmen. Two traders were shot dead by the gunmen this morning," spokesman of the military Joint Task Force in the state, Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa, told AFP.

Traders said that the gunmen shot dead four people, all of them Christians from the ethnic Ibo in the southeast, and fled after the attack.