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Updated at 0200 GMT: Borno sources say that death toll following Boko Haram attacks could be as high as 200
![A man walks by the charred remains of houses burned by extremist Boko Haram fighters. The Boko Haram group's signature strategy is to raze buildings and entire villages in Nigeria's northeast. But they have stepped up attacks since May. This week they killed up to 170 people in attacks in Borno, police have said [AP]](http://thebricspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/AP290612933869-e1393793665632.jpg)
A man walks by the charred remains of houses burned by extremist Boko Haram fighters. The Boko Haram group’s signature strategy is to raze buildings and entire villages in Nigeria’s northeast. But they have stepped up attacks since May. This week they killed up to 170 people in attacks in Borno, police have said [AP]
Borno state police said that a female suicide bomber blew herself up, killing 10 people in a crowded marketplace in the village of Malari.
A second female suicide bomber killed three people, including a soldier, and injured 20 when she detonated the explosives she was carrying at a military checkpoint in the village of Konduga.
The two suicide attacks come just a day after Boko Haram fighters rounded up dozens of Muslim men, who had been resting after a day of fasting for the holy month of Ramadan, and shot them in the villages of Kukawa, Mussaram and Mussaram II.
The Boko Haram fighters also attacked a number of mosques in the villages, police officials told local media.
Police sources said that as many as 148 people were killed, some charred beyond recognition when Boko Haram set fire to homes.
Burning homes is a scorched earth policy employed by Boko Haram, an Islamist extremist group that wants to carve out of Nigeria a state based on Sharia (Islamic Law).
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari called the attacks “heinous terrorism” and urged a regional military force backed by the African Union, the US and UK to be deployed as quickly as possible.
Boko Haram, which has killed thousands and destroyed dozens of villages in northeast Nigeria, lost territory as several African states – Chad and Cameroon – joined in the fight to defeat the group.
But since May, Boko Haram, which earlier in the year pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), has been carrying out daring raids and seized back strategic areas bordering Chad, Niger and Cameroon.
On June 16, Boko Haram fighters launched a double-suicide bomb attack against a police academy and security station in the Chadian capital N`Djamena killing 24 and wounding at least 100.
On Friday, Chadian security officials said they had seized a large weapons cache, including rockets, in a house in N`Djamena.
The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies
