Nigerian police and soldiers repelled an attack by gunmen on French factory
IN DAMATURU, Nigeria (Chat212 FM) — Nigerian police and soldiers repelled an attack by gunmen on a French-owned cement factory on Thursday in northeast Nigeria, where security forces are battling an Islamic uprising, a police official said.
The gunmen tried to shoot their way into the compound in the morning, police spokesman Deputy Supt. Fwaje Atajiri said.
An attack on the same Ashaka Cement factory, a subsidiary of Lafarge SA in Gombe state, was carried out a month ago by suspected gunmen of the Boko Haram extremist group. The gunmen fled with large amounts of dynamite loaded onto stolen pickup trucks. No one was killed.
Lafarge SA in Paris confirmed an attack by "militants" was repelled Thursday and that no one was wounded, a company spokeswoman said.
Boko Haram has been blamed for numerous deadly bombings, with a twin bombing and shooting at the main mosque in Kano, Nigeria's second-largest city in the north of the country, killing at least 102 people Nov. 21 and two double-bombings by teams of two female suicide bombers, killing at least 86 people in Maiduguri in the past 10 days.
Boko Haram has taken control of around two dozen towns and villages along the northeast border with Cameroon in recent months where it has declared an Islamic caliphate.
