Nigeria Gunmen Kidnap French National, Kill 2 Others
A group of 30 gunmen stormed a residence in northern Nigeria where expatriate workers were staying, kidnapping a French engineer and killing a security guard and a neighbor, police said Thursday.
The gate outside the building that housed employees of the French company Vergnet had several bullet holes after the raid late Wednesday in the northern state of Katsina, according to residents and police.
Vergnet told AFP that the abducted engineer was a contractor working for the firm, which specializes in alternative energy and has a wind power project in Katsina.
Northern Nigeria has been repeatedly attacked by Boko Haram Islamists who are blamed for killing hundreds in the region since 2009.
But Katsina state police chief Abdullahi Magaji told AFP that he did not believe the Islamists were responsible for the Frenchman's abduction.
He said 30 attackers were involved in the raid in the village of Rimi, roughly 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the state capital.
"They opened fire killing a security guard employed by the company and a neighbor of the house and badly injured a policeman guarding the house," he said.
"The gunmen later threw an explosive device into the police station on their way out (of) the town to distract the police from pursuing them."
A resident, who requested anonymity, said the gunmen had "laid siege" to the neighborhood after arriving in a convoy of vehicles, and that gunfire could be heard around the residence for 20 minutes before the attackers fled.
The police chief said the French engineer had recently returned from a trip abroad and that two other foreigners who live in the building were currently out of Nigeria.
Katsina state, on the border with Niger, lies in a region assailed by Boko Haram, but it has been spared from the Islamist group's attacks.
The insurgents say they are fighting to create an Islamic state in Nigeria's mainly Muslim north.
Security officials have blamed Boko Haram for previous similar abductions, but the group, which frequently claims gun and bomb attacks, has never acknowledged seizing a foreign national.
Following the abduction of a British and Italian in northwest Sokoto state last year, Nigeria's government sought to blame Boko Haram. Residents however ruled out the group's involvement, insisting it was the work of local gangs.
The two Europeans were killed in March amid a rescue operation jointly planned with British authorities.
In January, unidentified gunmen kidnapped German engineer Edgar Raupach in Kano state, which is next to Katsina. He was found dead in May in a home described as a Boko Haram hideout.
A private Mauritanian news agency had reported that Raupach was taken by Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
AQIM has not been known to operate directly in Nigeria, though Boko Haram and other extremists in the country are thought to have links to the group.
Kidnap for ransom has long been a lucrative business in Nigeria, although most such incidents have occurred in the oil-producing south, where foreigners working for energy companies have repeatedly been targeted.
In Nigeria, which is Africa's most populous nation and top oil producer, most residents in the north are Muslim, while the south is predominately Christian.
Source: Agence France Presse
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