It all started when a car bomb exploded Friday afternoon outside a three-storey building used as a military office and barracks, killing mainly uniformed security agents.
Then unknown numbers of gunmen went through the town, blowing up a bank and attacking at least three police stations and five churches, leaving them in rubble. Gunfire continued through out the night as gunmen raided both damaturu and the village of Potiskum near the capital, leaving at least two people dead in Potiskum.
A short time later, suicide bombers driving a black SUV detonated their explosives outside the base for the military unit charged with protecting the city from Boko Haram fighters, military spokesman Lt. Col. Hassan Ifijeh Mohammed said that the blast injured several soldiers.
On Saturday morning, people began hesitantly leaving their homes, seeing the destruction left behind which included military and police vehicles burned by the gunmen with the burnt corpse of a driver who died still in his seat.
A Boko Haram spokesman an Abuja based Abul-Qaqa claimed responsibility for the attacks in an interview Saturday with The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record across Nigeria's Muslim north, using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa promised that "more attacks are on the way."
"We will continue attacking federal government formations until security forces stop their excesses on our members and vulnerable civilians," the spokesman said.
Boko Haram wants to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, an oil-rich nation of more than 160 million which has a predominantly Christian south and a Muslim north. Its name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, but instead of schooling, it rejects Western ideals like Nigeria's U.S.-styled democracy that followers believe have destroyed the country with corrupt politicians.
Boko Haram's attacks occurred on the eve of Eid al-Adha, and the president has wondered if the attackers were true muslims.
sources: ndtv.com , reuters.com ,bbcnews
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