At least 80 people were killed and about 150 injured in multiple bomb attacks in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state on Sunday evening, police and witnesses said on Monday.
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The city has been free of attack for about a month. In mid-August, a skirmish broke out between suspected Boko Haram militants on the outskirts of Maiduguri.
The number wounded from the blasts was still not available, said Lt.Col. Tukuru Gusau, the army spokesman for the 7th Division based in Maiduguri.
The Nigerian military said three blasts had taken place in the restive city. The Boko Haram insurgency, which aims to establish a strict version of Islamic law in Africa’s largest economy and oil producer, has left thousands of people dead.
The explosions also followed a warning from Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari that “conventional” Boko Haram attacks were decreasing but that suicide and homemade bomb outrages could continue.
In another development, suspected Boko Haram members ambushed security forces along Maiduguri- Dikwa- Gamboru Ngala road on Saturday.
Sporadic bombings in public venues have become the preferred tactic for the militant group in recent months as the Nigerian Army’s offensive has forced the group to retreat into the wilderness.
Shekau said in a 25-minute recording in Hausa and Arabic via social media that “They (the military) lied that they have confiscated our arms, that we have been chased out of our territories, that we are in disarray“.
Since July, around 100 people have died in suicide attacks in the extreme north of Cameroon, which has joined the regional fight against Boko Haram. As many as 2,000 civilians were killed and 3,700 homes and business were destroyed in the January 3, 2015, attack on the town near Nigerias border with Cameroon, said Amnesty worldwide . “They are now combing all known terrorist enclaves within the Bama, Banki and Pulka areas”.
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“I saw the corpses with my own eyes”.
