Suspected Boko Haram Islamists have stormed a town in northeast Nigeria, opened fire on police and civilians and killed 11 people, residents and a local lawmaker told Agence France Presse Friday.

"The attack lasted until about midnight," said Adamu Isah a resident of the town of Damboa in Borno state, referring to the Thursday attack, adding that "11 people died." State lawmaker Ayamu Lawan Gwasha, who represents Damboa, confirmed the details.

Boko Haram's brutal Islamist insurgency has stalled Nigeria's development, inflamed ethnic tensions and raised concern among its neighbors, a senior U.S. diplomat said Thursday at the start of bilateral security talks.

Wendy Sherman, U.S. under-secretary of state for political affairs, said the United States was ready to help Nigeria "develop a multi-faceted strategy" to contain the violence, but warned that a military crackdown alone would not work.

Nigeria's military on Wednesday said it had killed the second-in-command of Islamist group Boko Haram while repelling an insurgent attack earlier this month.

A military statement said there had been a bounty of 25 million naira ($156,000, 117,000 euros) on the head of Momodu Bama, who went by the alias Abu Saad.

Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, lost about 1.2 billion dollars to oil thieves in a single month of the first quarter of 2013, an official statement said Tuesday.

"At average January-March prices of $121 per barrel, this theft resulted in a loss of $1.2bn to Nigeria in one month alone," President Goodluck Jonathan's special adviser on oil-rich Niger Delta, Kingsley Kuku, said in the statement. Official figures indicate that the trade in stolen oil led to a 17 percent fall in official oil sales in the first quarter of 2013, estimated at 400,000 barrels per day, it said. The International Energy Agency said last month that the theft of oil from pipelines in Nigeria had damaged infrastructure, and was one factor in a fall of output by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) of which Nigeria is a member. Such theft involves thieves tapping pipelines to syphon crude for sale on the lucrative black market. It often leads to explosions, fires and oil pollution. Kuku said that his office would on Thursday organize in Lagos a conference on oil theft and sea piracy in the Niger Delta.

Brutal attacks on a mosque and a village in northeastern Nigeria that left 56 people dead raised fresh questions Tuesday over the military's offensive seeking to end a four-year Islamist insurgency.

Security forces claim they have chased out members of Islamist extremist group Boko Haram and destroyed their camps, but a series of attacks on civilians in recent weeks has signaled that any gains may have been short-lived.

Forced evictions in Nigeria's largest city Lagos have cost around 9,000 people their homes or livelihoods, Amnesty International and a local rights group said in a report Monday.

Tens of thousands more could be at risk if the government proceeds with plans to redevelop the slum area of Badia East, said the report, issued jointly with the Social and Economic Rights Action Center (SERAC).

A gang has abducted four Thai nationals in southern Nigeria in what was believed to be a ransom kidnapping, while a Nigerian drowned in the incident, a local official said Saturday.

A group of kidnappers in a boat on Friday attacked the four Thais and two Nigerians while they were on their way to work at a fish farm in the southern state of Rivers, state agriculture commissioner Emmanuel Chindah told Agence France Presse.

Gunfire and explosions shook one northeastern Nigerian town Tuesday while soldiers slapped a round-the-clock curfew on another in the region hit by waves of insurgent attacks, the military and residents said.

Clashes broke out in the town of Gamboru Ngala on the border with Cameroon on Monday night and continued on Tuesday, a resident said. The military had not commented on the situation there and details remained unclear.

Two Lebanese suspects alleged to be members of Hizbullah and on trial in Nigeria on terrorism charges told a court Monday they were harshly interrogated by Israeli agents after their arrests.

Mustapha Fawaz, Abdallah Thahini and Talal Ahmad Roda were arrested in May after the discovery of an arms cache in a residence in the northern Nigerian city of Kano.

Clashes between Nigeria's military and Islamist extremist group Boko Haram in two northeastern towns have left at least 35 people dead, most of them insurgents, the army said Monday.

The clashes broke out after attacks on soldiers and a police station, according to the military, and occurred as security forces wage an offensive in the region aimed at ending a four-year Islamist insurgency.