'Scores dead' during violence in Nigeria town

A series of bombs bomb blasts and gun battles are believed to have killed at least 60 people in the in northeastern Nigerian town of Damaturu, Al Jazeera's correspondent in the country has said.

Yvonne Ndege, reporting from Abuja, the capital, said that witnesses reported scenes of "carnage" and "chaos" after several bombs and running gun battles surged through on the streets of the town Damaturu on Friday evening.

"Eyewitnesses say that there is carnage and chaos on the streets ... they also say that they have seen up to 60 bodies in a mortuary," she said.

"It is diffcult to verify these reports especially since this is a very remote part of the country."

The violence follows a series of attacks reported in the neighbouring cities of Maiduguri and Potiskum on Friday afternoon. Up to three suicide bombings and roadside bombs struck Maiduguri, while it was reported that unidentified gunmen exchanged fire with security officers in the town of Potiskum.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks on Friday but authorities said they suspected the Islamist Boko Haram group, who have carried out a succession of recent attacks in the country, were responsible.

The series of attacks in Maiduguri began when three roadside bombs exploded in quick succession in an apparent co-ordinated strike, hitting the wards of Meduguri and Jajeri and the El-Kanemi College of Islamic Theology.

The attacks, all of them occuring around the time of Friday prayers, caused panic in the city's mosques. A short time later, suicide bombers driving a black SUV attempted to enter a base for the military unit charged with protecting the city from Boko Haram fighters, a military spokesperson told the AP news agency.

The SUV could not enter the gate and those inside the vehicle detonated explosives outside the base, damaging several buildings in the military's compound, according to Hassan Ifijeh Mohammed, an army spokesman.

Running gun battles Gunmen later attacked Damaturu and Potiskum, located next to each other about 100 km west of Maiduguri, in Yobe state, and engaged in running gun battles with security forces, witnesses said.

Residents heard several explosions, which later turned out to be the bombings of small local churches and a police stations.

Security forces this week started door-to-door searches for weapons in the northeast, after an arms amnesty for fighters expired on October 31. It was unclear whether or not this spate of attacks was a response to that operation.

Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sacrilege", has staged numerous targeted assassinations and bombings around Maiduguri over the last year, killing more than 240 people this year alone, according to AP figures.

In recent months, the group appears to have abandoned some of its previous restraint in only targeting government and security officials.

In August, it claimed responsibility for the suicide car bombing of the UN headquarters in Abuja, which killed 24 people and left another 116 wounded.




Aljazeera