They were picked up on Tuesday during police raids in the northern city of Kano.

The police in the northern city of Kano on Tuesday announced the arrest of 158 suspected members of the Islamist Boko Haram sect, Nigerian Tribune reported. The raids followed last Friday’s deadly bomb attacks on the city by the sect that the police say left 186 people dead.

The police in Kano announced that gunmen, suspected to be Boko Haram militants, on Tuesday evening threw explosives and opened fire on a police station. According to residents, the assailants who came by car, on motorcycles and on foot, threw two bombs at the police station and then followed with gunshots that lasted for 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, at least 50 unclaimed corpses of victims of last weekend’s attacks were given mass burial on Tuesday, THISDAY said. The corpses had been deposited at the Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital mortuary, Kano. In a related development, the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero, on Tuesday led other emirs on a sympathy visit to the hospital where victims of the blasts are receiving treatment, THISDAY reported.

In Kaduna, also in the north, there was heavy security presence as a combined team of police and soldiers mounted road blocks on major streets. Motorists plying the busy Independence Way and Kachia Road were subjected to thorough search by armed soldiers and police leading to serious traffic congestion. Boko Haram says it wants to overthrow the Nigerian government and impose Islamic law. Human rights groups say close to 1,000 people were killed in attacks by the group in 2011.

Meanwhile, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt-Gen. Onyeabo Azubuike Ihejirika, has said the government will not under any condition negotiate with Boko Haram. The Guardian quoted him as saying on Tuesday in the capital, Abuja, that those calling for dialogue with Boko Haram would soon realise that the group’s menace cannot be resolved through talks.

A US delegation led by William Fitzgerald, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, held security talks with Nigerian officials in Abuja on Tuesday. The two sides agreed to boost the operational capabilities of the Nigeria security services in the face of internal security threats. A top African Union counter-terrorism official, Francisco Caetano Jose Madeira, has warned of the possibility of the radical sect spreading its violent campaign to neighbouring African countries, Nigerian Tribune said.