Kano, Nigeria - Nigeria's military has arrested more than 150 people after a weekend ambush on an army patrol blamed on members of a radical Islamist sect, a spokesman said on Tuesday.
"We have made over 150 arrests of suspects in the ambush on a military patrol team by gunmen we believe to be members of Boko Haram sect in an area of town notorious for attacks on military and police patrols," army spokesman Lieutenant Abdullahi Muhammad told AFP.
An army patrol team came under attack in Gwange district of the northern city of Maiduguri on Sunday night, leading to a shootout that lasted for 30 minutes, Muhammad said.
He did not give any details about casualties.
"We cordoned off the whole area and made the arrests," he said.
He said screening of the suspects was underway and those not implicated in the attack would be freed.
Residents of Maiduguri have complained about the way security forces are going about hunting down members of Boko Haram.
Husseini Hala, a human rights lawyer said there had been "series of complaints of rights abuses" by troops deployed in the city.
Boko Haram staged a short-lived uprising in parts of the north in 2009 in a doomed bid to establish an Islamic state, but the rebellion was crushed in a brutal military crackdown.
Hundreds of people, mostly sect's members were killed during the crackdown with the group's headquarters and mosque destroyed in Maiduguri, where most of the violence has occurred.
The sect has in recent months resorted to hit-and-run attacks targeting soldiers and policemen, community leaders and politicians.
It has also been blamed for raids on police stations, churches and a prison in recent months.