Attackers in northern Nigeria Sunday killed three Korean doctors, beheading one of them, two days after suspected Islamic fundamentalists shot dead nine polio vaccinators nearby.
The attack, in the early hours of yesterday morning, was the latest in a spate of killings of foreigners, especially Chinese nationals, in the country's restive northeast.In November, gunmen shot dead two Chinese construction workers in nearby Borno State, the stronghold of the Boko Haram extremists.
Three other Chinese nationals have also been killed in separate attacks in the region.
"It could well just be a burglary that went wrong, but the fact that they beheaded one of them points to someone who wants to make a point," one Western diplomat in Abuja said.
It was "entirely possible", he said, that Boko Haram had made a decision to begin targeting soft targets. The group is usually behind shootings and bombings of Christian places of worship and police and army compounds.
