Gunmen kill at least 40 in attack on Nigerian college

[NBCNews]

By Joel Duku, ReutersDAMATURU, Nigeria — Gunmen  killed at least 40 people on Sunday in an attack on a college in northeast  Nigeria, a Reuters witness said, in a region where Islamist militants have  targeted schools and universities.

Islamist sect Boko Haram has  intensified attacks on civilian targets in recent weeks in reaction to a  military offensive against its insurgency. Boko Haram and spin-off Islamist  groups like the al Qaeda-linked Ansaru have become the biggest security threat  in Africa's second largest economy and top oil exporter.

Gunmen stormed  the College of Agriculture in Yobe state and shot students as they slept in the  early hours of Sunday, state police commissioner Sanusi Rufai said.

A  Reuters witness counted 40 bodies at the main hospital in Yobe state capital  Damaturu, mostly of young men believed to be students. The bodies were brought  from the college, which is in Gujba, a rural area about 30 miles south of  Damaturu.

Suspected Boko Haram militants have targeted several schools  in recent months, including a raid which killed 27 students and a teacher at a  school in Potiskum, a town about 30 miles from the site of Sunday's attack.

Thousands have been killed since Boko Haram launched its uprising  against the state in 2009, turning itself from a clerical movement opposed to  Western culture into an armed militia with growing links to al Qaeda's West  African wing.

President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency  in three northeastern state in May, including Yobe, and ordered a military  offensive aimed at crushing Boko Haram's insurgency.

There was an  initial lull in the violence as Islamists fled bases in cities, forests and  mountains across the northeast. Then the militants began revenge attacks on  schools, seen as the focus of Western-style education and culture, then on the  security forces and civilians believed to be helping them.

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Source: Gunmen kill at least 40 in attack on Nigerian college