Kano, Nigeria - Gunmen suspected of being members of an Islamist sect behind a deadly uprising in Nigeria last year shot dead three worshippers at a mosque in a northern city Friday, police and witnesses said.
One of two gunmen riding a motorcycle opened fire on a Wahabi mosque in the city of Maiduguri shortly before Friday prayers, killing three people including a boy, mosque officials and witnesses told AFP.
"The sermon was about to commence when two men on a motorcycle approached and one of them opened fire into the congregation ... killing three people including the 10-year-old boy," mosque official Abdulkadir Yunus said.
The gunmen fled in the confusion that followed, he said.
"From all indications, the attackers are members of Boko Haram, who are believed to have been behind several such killings using motorcycles and guns in the past few months," Yunus said.
The Islamist Boko Haram sect considers Saudi-inclined Wahabi Muslims to be heretics for their vehement opposition to Boko Haram's ideology of violence and its aversion to Western education.
"The congregation was waiting for the sermon to begin and I was outside the mosque, which has filled with worshippers, when I heard deafening gunshots coming from the main road close to the mosque," worshipper Abdullahi Haruna told AFP.
"I lay flat on the ground while people scampered to safety. Three bodies including that of a young boy lay in a pool of blood," Haruna said.
Borno State police spokesman Lawan Abdullahi confirmed the killing.
"Three people have been confirmed killed by the attackers who opened fire on the congregation in the mosque," he told AFP.
"The suspected culprits are the Boko Haram members whose modus operandi has been hit-and-run attacks on motorcycles," he said, adding he was unaware of any arrests.
Maiduguri was the main theatre of an uprising by Boko Haram last year in which hundreds of people were killed. In the past few months the city has seen a series of killings blamed on sect.
A fiery Wahabi cleric renowned for criticising Boko Haram ideology was gunned down at his home in October, along with a student, by men suspected to be members of the militant Islamist sect.