Boko Haram steps up attacks in northeast Nigeria
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Nigerian Islamist insurgents Boko Haram stepped up their attacks this week on civilians in the group's northeastern stronghold of Borno state, killing more than 150 people in raids and suicide bombings.
Gunmen shot dead nearly 50 people in a village on Tuesday, rounded up and killed about 100 in Kukawa on Wednesday and shot dead 12 in a dawn raid elsewhere on Friday, while two suicide bombers killed at least 10 along a highway on Thursday.
President Muhammadu Buhari, who vowed to crush Boko Haram when he was sworn in on May 29, said the killings in the town of Kukawa were a "heinous atrocity which must be unreservedly condemned by all people of conscience".
"The attacks killing around 150 people in two villages in northeastern Borno state in Nigeria and targeting Muslim worshippers during the holy month of Ramadan are another attempt to destabilise the country and the region," European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said in a statement.
"The EU stands with the Nigerian people and authorities in our common fight against terrorism,"
Thousands of people have been killed and about 1.5 million displaced during Boko Haram's six-year fight to create an Islamic caliphate in the northeast of Africa's top oil producer.
MILITARY OFFENSIVE
Boko Haram controlled an area roughly the size of Belgium at the end of 2014 before a military offensive seized much of the territory in the first few months of this year.
The militants have since resorted to deadly hit-and-run attacks on settlements and suicide bombers, but they have intensified their strikes since Buhari was sworn in and moved the army's command centre to the Borno state capital.
In the latest attack, suspected Boko Haram insurgents raided a village called Miringa in Borno state at dawn on Friday, selected 12 men and shot them, a military source said.
Two suicide bomb blasts along a highway in Borno state killed at least 10 people on Thursday, state police said.
A female suicide bomber killed seven and injured 13 at a village called Malari on the main road from Bama to Konduga while a second suicide bomber killed three in blast along the same road, Borno state police chief Aderemi Opadokun said.
A military source said in both cases the suicide bombers targeted crowded areas where locals sell fruit along the highway, which runs southeast of the state capital Maiduguri.
(Editing by David Clarke and Ralph Boulton)