'Dozens' Die In Nigeria School Raid

Suspected Islamist militants from the Boko Haram group in north-eastern Nigeria have attacked a school and shot some students, the military has said. Dozens of pupils are reported to have been killed. Police told Reuters that all the dead were boys and that some of the bodies "were burned to ashes". The attack took place in troubled Yobe state, the military said. Residents of the town of Buni Yadi said the attackers struck at night, slitting the throats of some students. They said that others were shot. Teachers at the remote Federal Government College boarding school in Buni Yadi told the AP news agency that as many as 40 students had been killed in the assault which began early on Tuesday morning. Hospital sources in Yobe told the BBC 29 corpses had been brought in following the attack. The BBC's Isa Sanusi, from the Hausa service, says Boko Haram tends to attack schools that teach Nigeria's national curriculum which the militants consider to be Western. The group follows an extremely strict version of Islam and its name means "Western education is sinful" in the northern Hausa language, he says. Earlier this month the militants claimed responsibility for killing a prominent northern Nigerian Islamic scholar, Sheikh Mohammed Awwal Albani, because he said the group's actions were un-Islamic.