MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Four women suicide bombers blew themselves up early Friday when challenged by soldiers as they tried to enter Maiduguri, Nigeria, killing at least 18 people and themselves, civilian defense fighters, the National Emergency Management Agency and witnesses said.
The explosions happened at dawn Friday, just hours after two bombs exploded near a mosque in Maiduguri, killing at least 30 people.
The agency’s northeast Nigeria coordinator, Muhammed Kanar, said 20 people were wounded in that earlier attack, some critically. Boko Haram Islamic extremists are suspected of being behind the attack.
The series of suicide bomb attacks comes even as President Muhammadu Buhari says that he expects the “final routing of Boko Haram as an organized fighting force” by year’s end.