MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AFP) ― Boko Haram on Monday launched two separate attacks on state capitals in northeast Nigeria, when two female suicide bombers hit a busy market and fighters launched a major assault on police.
The blasts in Maiduguri and the dawn raid in Damaturu came just days after a deadly mosque attack in the northern city of Kano left at least 120 people dead and hundreds injured.
Estimates of the death tolls varied, with hospital staff saying 16 had died in the suicide blasts, while vigilantes in Damaturu claimed more than 40 Boko Haram gunmen had been killed in fighting.
Only last Tuesday, more than 45 people died in the same Maiduguri market when two other women suicide bombers detonated explosives hidden in their hijabs.
But as the country reeled from the latest bloodshed, Washington revealed that Nigeria has halted U.S. training of its troops to take on the extremists.
Tensions have been rising between the two countries over the Nigerian military’s human rights record and the apparent reluctance of the U.S. to supply it with attack helicopters. Almost daily atrocities blamed on Boko Haram have brought the northeast of the country to the brink. Both Maiduguri, which is the capital of Borno state, and Damaturu, the main city in neighboring Yobe, have been hit repeatedly by Boko Haram.
koreaherald@heraldcorp.com
