MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Gunmen from a radical Islamist group opened fire Tuesday night at a beer parlor in northeast Nigeria, killing eight people, including four police officers, as part of their ongoing sectarian battle against the oil-rich nation’s government, authorities said.
The shootings come as the sect known as Boko Haram has promised to target Christians in the Muslim north, expanding its campaign of assassinations and bombings.
The government blames the sect for killing at least 63 people in less than a week, according to an Associated Press count, as the group campaigns to impose strict Islamic — or Shariah — law across the multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.
The anger also has spread to the southwest, where five people were killed in attacks on a mosque and Koranic school.
The attack in the northeast occurred in Potiskum in Yobe state. Local police commissioner Tanko Lawan said the six gunmen began shooting as patrons drank beer, which the local Shariah law technically opposes, though bars remain open for those living there.
“We didn’t confront the gunmen at the beer parlor,” Lawan said. “Any police that goes there went on his own.”
Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, is blamed for at least 510 killings last year alone, according to an AP count. In a recent attack, it killed 20 Christian Igbo traders holding a meeting in Nigeria’s northeast.
The group also claimed credit for attacks that killed at least 42 people in Christmas Day strikes that included the bombing of a Catholic church near Abuja.
