Nigerian troops were today accused of killing 16 Boko Haram suspects, after vigilantes claimed to have beheaded dozens of Islamist fighters in the country's far northeast.
Boko Haram was meanwhile reported to have begun enforcing strict Islamic law by amputating the hands of thieves and razing churches in a captured town it renamed as part of its self-styled caliphate.
The incidents raised fresh concern about the conduct of the military and the civilians supporting it and undermined repeated government claims of a ceasefire and peace talks.
Also Read
In Potiskum, 16 men who were arrested after morning prayers yesterday were found dead in a morgue with bullet wounds just hours later, community leaders and hospital staff told AFP.
Locals in the Dogo Tebo area of the city believed the men were picked up and killed because all of them were from the Kanuri ethnic group that forms the bulk of Boko Haram's membership.
"All the bodies have gunshot wounds on them," said a nurse at the Potiskum General Hospital, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
The bodies had been brought in by soldiers and were formally identified by community leaders, he told AFP.
On Monday, at least 15 people were killed and some 50 others were injured in a suicide bombing targeting a major Shia Muslim festival in Potiskum, which is Yobe state's commercial capital.
A number of others were killed when troops deployed to the scene opened fire, the head of the Shia community, Mustapha Lawan Nasidi, said at the time.
The latest deaths were described by another community leader as "cold-blooded murder" while residents expressed concern about the fate of a Muslim cleric and three others who were also detained.
Neither the military in Yobe or the capital, Abuja, responded to AFP when asked for comment and there was no word either on claims from Biu in neighbouring Borno state about the beheadings.
A member of the civilian vigilante group, Umar Hassan, said they and troops ambushed Boko Haram fighters last Friday as they prepared a raid on Sabon Gari village in the south of the state.
"We killed 41 of them and decapitated them and brought the heads to Biu, which we displayed to people to demystify Boko Haram," he said.
