Gunmen kill at least 13 people in a mosque shooting in northwestern Nigeria

ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Gunmen attacked a mosque in northwestern Nigeria on Tuesday morning, killing at least 13 people during morning prayers, local authorities said.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attack in the town of Unguwan Mantau, in the state of Katsina, but such attacks are common in Nigeria’s northwestern and north-central regions where local herders and farmers often clash over limited access to land and water.

The attacks have killed and injured scores — last month, an attack in north-central Nigeria killed 150 people. The prolonged conflict has become deadlier in recent years, with authorities and analysts warning that more herdsmen are taking up arms.

The state’s commissioner, Nasir Mu’azu, said the army and police have deployed in the area of Unguwan Mantau to prevent further attacks, adding that gunmen often hide among the crops in farms during the rainy season to carry out assaults on communities.

He added that the mosque attack was likely in retaliation for a raid by Unguwan Mantau townspeople, who over the weekend ambushed and killed several of the gunmen in the area.

Dozens of armed groups take advantage of the limited security presence in Nigeria’s mineral-rich regions, carrying out attacks on villages and along major roads.

The farmers accuse the herders, mostly of Fulani origin, of grazing their livestock on their farms and destroying their produce. The herders insist that the lands are grazing routes that were first backed by law in 1965, five years after the country gained its independence.

Separate from the conflict between farming and herding communities, Nigeria is battling to contain Boko Haram insurgents in the northeast, where some 35,000 civilians have been killed and more than 2 million displaced, according to the United Nations.