Nigeria jailbreak: Gunmen storm Kogi state prison

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Nigeria - Troubled Giant

Armed men have broken into a jail in Nigeria using bombs and heavy gunfire, freeing 119 inmates, officials say.

A prison service spokeswoman told the BBC that the armed men killed a prison officer during the attack, in Kogi state, on Wednesday evening.
Most of the prisoners were awaiting trial and none were high-profile detainees, according to officials.
No group said it carried out the attack, but suspicion has fallen on the Islamist militant Boko Haram group.
The group has carried out similar jailbreaks before, including a massive 2010 attack on a prison further north in Bauchi state.
In that incident Boko Haram freed about 700 prisoners, many of whom were members of the group.
'No lifers' Boko Haram has gone on to stage increasingly deadly attacks in the north of the country.
Last month it also freed some of its captured members during a series of bombings on police stations in the northern city Kano.

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After bombing the gate, they immediately moved into the prison shooting sporadically in order to chase other prison officers away”

Eyewitness, Daily Trust newspaper

But Hadijha Aminu, from the Nigerian Prisons Service, told the BBC that officials did not suspect Boko Haram in the latest jailbreak in Koton-Karifi, 100 miles (160km) south of the capital Abuja.

She declined to explain why Boko Haram had been ruled out.
She said the attackers had freed all but one of the inmates from the federal prison.
"There were no high-profile prisoners - no lifers," she said.
A warden was killed when attackers forced open the gates of the jail, and 119 prisoners are now on the run.
Earlier reports said 199 inmates had been freed, but this figure was later revised down by officials.
A police officer, who requested anonymity, told Nigeria's Daily Trust newspaper that about 20 gunmen stormed the jail on motorbikes.
He said the attack, launched at about 19:00 local time (18:00 GMT), lasted for about 30 minutes.
An eyewitness told the paper: "After bombing the gate, they immediately moved into the prison shooting sporadically in order to chase other prison officers away."
Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is forbidden", wants to establish Islamic law in Nigeria.