LAGOS MARCH 8TH (URHOBOTODAY)-At least five blasts have killed 50 people and injured 56 in the city of Maiduguri in north-eastern Nigeria, an official has told the BBC.
Two crowded markets and a busy bus station were targeted by suicide bombers, witnesses said.
Witnesses in one of the markets described gory scenes with men, women and children lying on the ground.
Maiduguri was once the stronghold of the militant group Boko Haram, which is seeking to establish an Islamic state.
The Islamist group has not yet commented on the latest attacks, but it has used suicide bombers before.
After being pushed out of Maiduguri last year, the Islamist fighters retreated to the nearby Sambisa Forest from where they launched attacks on villages and towns in the north-east, taking over swathes of territory.
‘Detonated at security gate’
The attacks took place over about three hours – the first one targeting the city’s Baga fish market.
The explosion was caused by a suicide bomber in a rickshaw, eyewitnesses told the BBC.
It was not clear if the bomber was male or female.
Later Monday Market came under an attack. A trader there told the BBC that two other female bombers seemed to have exploded devices.
One had a bomb strapped to her body that detonated as she was being scanned at the gate leading into the market, he said.
Another woman exploded the bomb she was carrying in a bag a few feet away, he added.
It was difficult to know how many people had died as body parts littered the area.
The third blast was at the Borno Express bus station where it is reported that there were two explosions.
In another development, the leader of Nigeria’s Boko Haram militants, Abubakar Shekau, has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State (IS) group in an audio recording released Saturday.
“We announce our allegiance to the Caliph of the Muslims, Ibrahim ibn Awad ibn Ibrahim al-Husseini al-Qurashi,” said the voice on the message, which was believed to be that of Shekau and was released through Boko Haram’s Twitter account.
Qurashi is better known as Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the IS group which has proclaimed a caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq.
Shekau spoke in Arabic, but the message contained French and English subtitles.
It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the message.
Shekau was not pictured, a contrast from most of Boko Haram’s past messages in which the Islamist leader has been shown, often in close up shots.
But Shekau did identify himself in the recording, which was accompanied by the subtitles and a graphic including an image of a radio microphone.
There have in recent months been signs of closer ties between the Nigerian militants and the IS group, with both using similar ways of communicating with the outside world. Boko Haram has notably begun releasing videos that resemble those made by IS.
Boko Haram has been waging a six-year uprising against the Nigerian state, which has claimed more than 13,000 lives.
Analysts have long debated the extent of Boko Haram’s ties to other jihadist groups, but the evidence was never clear.
BBC & AFP