At least 23 civilians were killed and more than 100 injured after bombs exploded in several locations in the northeastern Nigerian state of Borno, the police reported.
The bombs, which detonated on Monday evening, hit a teaching hospital and two markets in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno. No group has claimed responsibility, but a Nigerian military spokesman attributed the attacks to suicide bombings by the terrorist group Boko Haram.
“The cowardly attacks targeted crowded public areas in an attempt by the terrorists to inflict mass casualties and create panic within the metropolis,” the spokesman, Lt. Col. Sani Uba, said in a statement on Monday.
The blasts came during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan as people were gathering to break their fasts. “I can’t believe how a group which says it’s fighting a religious cause be killing innocent people during Ramadan,” Zannah Musa, 38, a Maiduguri resident, said in a phone interview. The attacks had put his sister in the hospital. “Just look at the number of people affected,” Mr. Musa added.
Images by The Associated Press and Reuters from the explosion sites showed body bags and wounded people outside the hospital and damaged storefronts and debris in the street near market stalls.
With the support of U.S. military experts, Nigeria has recently intensified security operations against the militants. But Boko Haram and a powerful splinter group of it, the Islamic State West Africa Province, have stepped up attacks, especially in the restive northeastern areas.
Analysts said there was no clear evidence that the two militant groups had started working together. Assaults on several military bases this month and last, some of which happened at the same time, had increased that concern. Ladd Serwat, an Africa analyst at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data project, a research group in Madison, Wis., said, “The timing and the number of attacks presented an impression or assumption that the two rival groups might have temporarily halted hostilities to confront the government forces.”
Nigeria’s military has been conducting operations to drive insurgents from hide-outs in the Sambissa Forest area, in the country’s northeast, and have killed several militant commanders in recent months.
In response to the military operations, the Islamic State West Africa Province has overrun 11 military bases in recent months, killing scores of personnel and stealing weapons and equipment, according to Kabir Adamu, an analyst with a security consulting firm in Nigeria.
This month, the Islamic State West Africa Province stormed and took over Ngoshe, a town in Borno, killing scores of residents. The military expelled them a week later, but the militants fled with about 300 captives.
Mr. Serwat said that insurgent attacks were becoming more deadly, according to his group’s data, with at least 133 civilians killed last month by Boko Haram, the most in over a year.
After the Ngoshe attack, the governor of Borno, Babagana Umara Zulum, went on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, where he remains.
In a statement issued from Mecca on Monday after the attack, Gov. Zulum told people to remain calm and said “adequate measures” were in place to stop any further security breaches. He added that he would “participate in special prayers with fellow Muslims in the Holy Land for an end to this protracted conflict.”
Saikou Jammeh is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Dakar, Senegal.
The post At Least 23 Killed in Nigeria as Insurgent Attacks Go On Despite U.S. Help appeared first on New York Times.
