Boko Haram insurgents attacked the outskirts of Maiduguri in north-east Nigeria on Sunday, their second assault in a week on a city they hope to make the capital of a breakaway Islamist state. At least eight people were killed as the insurgents fought gunbattles with government soldiers, witnesses and a hospital source said.
"There is heavy gunfire going on. Everybody is panicking and trying to flee the area," said Idris Abubakar, a resident of Polo on the south-western outskirts of the city.
The insurgents, who arrived in several armed pick-up trucks and motor-bikes, attacked three points in the south-west and south-east at around the same time, a security source said. Troops backed by vigilantes had pushed them out of the south-east, a spokesman for a local pro-government vigilante group said.
In a separate incident in the town of Potiskum, 230 km (140 miles) west of Maiduguri, a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the house of a federal legislator, killing 10 people, two security sources told Reuters. Sabo Garbu, a member of the house of representatives, was unhurt.
Growing violence by the insurgents is a big problem for President Goodluck Jonathan, who faces a presidential election on February 14 that analysts say is too close to call.
The electoral commission is struggling with logistics to enable more than a million internal refugees to vote.
Capturing Maiduguri, the north-east's main city and the place where the insurgency sprang from five years ago, would be a huge victory for Boko Haram. The group currently controls mostly rural areas along the Cameroon and Chad borders that make up a territory the size of Belgium.
It was the second attack there in a week. The military repelled multiple attacks by militants on Maiduguri last weekend in which more than 100 people were killed.
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