Nigerian military battles armed kidnappers

Nigeria's military has exchanged fire with gunmen who kidnapped potentially hundreds of students from a school in the country's northwestern Katsina state, the president has said.

The gang, armed with AK-47s, stormed the Government Science secondary school in Kankara district on Friday (December 11) evening.

A parent and a school employee said roughly half of the school's 800 pupils were missing.

Bint'a Ismail says her child and younger brother were taken.

"We are in a terrifying condition" she said, adding that they had received no updates from the government.

In a statement President Muhammadu Buhari said the military had located the kidnappers in a forest and were exchanging gunfire with them, aided by air support.

Police were still working to determine how many were missing, and said they would deploy additional forces to support search and rescue.

Katsina is plagued by violence that the government attributes to bandits - a loose term for outlaws who attack locals and kidnap for ransom,

Attacks by Islamist militants are common in northeastern parts of the country.