The blast is the second in just over a month to hit one of the Shiite militant group’s bastions of support in years, and the deadliest in decades. It raises the specter of a sharply divided Lebanonbeing pulled further into the conflict next door, which is being fought on increasingly sectarian lines pitting Sunnisagainst Shiites.

Syria-based Sunni rebels and militant Islamist groups fighting to topple Syria’s President Bashar Assad have threatened to target Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon in retaliation for intervening on behalf of his regime in the conflict.

Thursday’s explosion ripped through a crowded, overwhelmingly Shiite area tightly controlled by Hezbollah, turning streets lined with vegetable markets, bakeries and shops into scenes of destruction and burning cars.

Dozens of ambulances rushed to the scene of the explosion and fire fighters used cranes and ladders in trying to evacuate dozens of residents from burning buildings. Some terrified residents fled to the rooftops of buildings and civil defense workers were still struggling to bring them down to safety several hours after the explosion.

The blast appeared to be an attempt to sow fear among the group’s civilian supporters and did not target any known Hezbollah facility or personality.

Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV and Red Cross official George Kattaneh said the death toll was at least 18 and said more than 280 were wounded.

The army, in a statement, said the explosion was caused by a car bomb. It called on residents to cooperate with security forces trying to evacuated people trapped in their homes.

Syria’s conflict has spilled across the border into its neighbor on multiple occasions in the past two years. Fire from Syria has hit border villages, while clashes between Lebanese factions backing different sides have left scores dead.

But direct attacks against civilian targets were rare until Hezbollah stepped up its role in Syria. Since then, its support bases in southern Beirut have been targeted. Since May, rockets have been fired at suburbs controlled by the group on two occasions, wounding four people. On July 9, a car bomb exploded in the nearby Beir al-Abed district, wounding more than 50 people.

However Thursday’s explosion was much deadlier than those, the bloodiest single attack in south Beirut since a 1985 truck bomb assassination attempt targeting top Shiite cleric Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah in Beir al-Abed left 80 people dead.

It came despite rigorous security measure taken in the past few weeks by Hezbollah around its strongholds, setting up checkpoints, searching cars and sometimes using sniffer dogs to search for bombs. It also came a day before Hezbollah leader’s was scheduled to give a major speech marking the end of the month-long 2006 war with Israel.

The explosion occurred on a commercial and residential main street in the Rweiss district, about 100 meters (yards) away from the Sayyed al-Shuhada complex where Hezbollah usually holds rallies.

Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, who has lived in hiding since his group’s 2006 month-long war with Israel, made a rare public appearance at the complex on Aug. 2, where he addressed hundreds of supporters. He was to speak again on Friday from a location in southern Lebanon, but his speeches by satellite are often transmitted to followers at the complex.

Panicked Hezbollah fighters fired in the air to clear the area and roughed up photographers, smashing and confiscating some of their cameras following the explosion.

Sunni-Shiite tensions have risen sharply in Lebanon, particularly since Hezbollah raised its profile by openly fighting alongside Assad’s forces. Lebanese Sunnis support the rebels fighting to topple Assad, a member of a Shiite offshoot sect.

The group’s fighters played a key role in a recent regime victory in the town of Qusair near the Lebanese border, and Syrian activists say they are now aiding a regime offensive in the besieged city of Homs.

A previously unheard-of group calling itself Aisha the Mother of Believers Brigades claimed responsibility for the attack in a video posted on YouTube, saying it is the second “message” they sent since last month’s blast in the area. The authenticity of the claim could not be independently verified.

“Our second message was strong and astounding,” said a masked man who read the statement, flanked by two other armed and masked men. He called on civilians to stay away from Hezbollah strongholds in the future, saying the militant group is “an agent for Iran and Israel.”

Hezbollah lawmaker Ali Ammar called the blast a “terrorist” attack and called for restraint among the group’s supporters. He suggested the group’s political rivals in Lebanon were responsible for creating an atmosphere that encourages such attacks.

Politicians within Lebanon’s Western-backed coalition have slammed the group for its involvement in Syria and called for its disarmament.

The U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Maura Connelly strongly condemned the bombing. In comments posted on the embassy’s Facebook page, Connelly called for all parties to exercise calm and restraint.

The British Foreign Office official in charge of Middle East policy, Alistair Burt, also condemned the attack.

“Terrorism and extremism have no place in Lebanon. I call for the Lebanese state to investigate this urgently and bring the perpetrators to justice,” he said in a statement.

Outgoing Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati declared Friday a day of mourning for the victims of the attack.

Several witnesses said they saw dead bodies after hearing multiple blasts at around 9:30 p.m. (2030 GMT) in the Sabon Gari district, a predominantly Christian area dominated by ethnic Igbos from the southeast.

“In all bomb attacks 15 were killed,” the policeman in Kano told Reuters, asking not to be named.

Military spokesman Ikedichi Iweha confirmed there had been a bomb explosion but gave no further details.

“I heard two explode around Enugu Road and another two near Forest Villa Hotel,” said local trader Emeka Mike. “After the blasts I saw many bodies lying on the ground.”

The military did not say who was suspected of carrying out the bombings, but Boko Haram killed at least 25 people in multiple bomb blasts in Sabon Gari in March.

A concerted military crackdown in Boko Haram’s northeast stronghold since mid-May has weakened a 4-year-old insurgency, which is fighting to carve an Islamic state out of religiously mixed Nigeria.

But it has also pushed the militants into hiding and security sources had feared attacks could spread to other areas of northern Nigeria like Kano or to neighbouring countries.

Militants have also shifted their focus away from security forces onto civilian targets, killing children in at least four school attacks over the past month and killing 20 civilians in an attack on a remote northeast village last weekend.

Two tourists, including a monk from Myanmar, have been injured in the blasts. The injured are being treated at the Anugrah Narain Magadh Medical College hospital.

Union home secretary Anil Goswami confirmed that the Bodh Gaya blasts were a terror attack.

Bihar Police suspect the involvement of Indian Mujahideen in the temple blasts.

According to Gaya Police, the blasts took place in quick succession between 5.30am and 6am in the temple complex and near the Mahabodhi tree. One blast was reported from a bus stand.

One of the blasts took place just under the enlightenment tree causing partial damage to the Buddha footprints in the shrine premises.

Four blasts took place inside the shrine premises, while another three blasts took place in the Tregar monastery premises. The Tregar monastery belongs to the Karmapa, the second most important spiritual leader.

JD(U) workers present there raised pro-Nitish slogans and countered the protesting BJP workers.

Cops have sealed the entry routes to the shrine. A NIA team is expected to arrive shortly for the probe.

“A team of NIA officers is coming to Bodh Gaya from Kolkata,” DIG special branch Parasnath said.

The DIG said, “The sanctum sanctorum of the Mahabodhi Temple is intact. The temple premises have been sanitised.”

The secretary of the Bodh Gaya committee Dorji said, “There were four blasts inside the temple premises. Fortunately, there was no damage to the Bodhi Tree or the main temple structure.”

“In the first blast which took place near the Bodhi tree, a table was blown up because of which two persons were injured. The second blast, I think, was inside the enclosure where books were kept. The furniture was damaged but there was no damage to the monuments or statues,” he said.

Asked about the nature of explosives used, S K Bharadwaj, ADG (Law and Order) said they were low intensity time bombs.

He said, “We got information about six-seven months back that there may be a terror attack on the Mahabodhi temple. After that we had beefed up secuirty and deployed extra forces”.

Bodh Gaya Buddhist temple, around 10 km from Gaya and 100 km from capital Patna, is world famous. Lord Buddha had attained enlightenment here under the Mahabodhi tree in the temple premises.

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama makes frequent trips to Bodh Gaya and Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa had visited it six months back. A total of 52 countries have established their monasteries here.

BAGHDAD: A car bomb exploded near a Sunni mosque in the west of Baghdad killing 11 people on Tuesday, police and medics said.

The blast, which took place in Abu Ghraib, also wounded 21 people. Earlier on Tuesday, several bomb blasts killed at least 12 people in Iraq, where Sunni-Shi’ite tensions are running high.

Baghlan provincial council leader Mohammad Rasoul Mohseni was entering the compound in the morning when the bomber ran up on foot and detonated his explosives, police spokesman in Baghlan province Jawed Bashrat said.

Provincial chief of police Asadullah Sherzad said 14 people were killed, including Mohseni, and 11 were wounded.

Mohammad Zahier Ghanizada, a member of parliament from Baghlan, confirmed the council chief’s death and added that Mohseni had previously received multiple death threats.

Also killed in the attack were six police bodyguards and seven civilians, Sherzad said.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed in a text message to journalists that an insurgent operative carried out the targeted bombing.

“Today at 11 a.m. in front of the Baghlan provincial council office, we have carried out a suicide attack and killed the head of the council,” it said.

Seeking to weaken the Afghan government, the main Taliban insurgents have been carrying out attacks and assassinations intended to intimidate both officials and civilians ahead of next year’s withdrawal of most international troops.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the bombing Monday.

“Such attacks are against all human rights and the principles of Islam,” Karzai said in a statement. “Perpetrators of such attacks are enemies of the Afghan nation and the puppets of foreigners.”

Karzai left later Monday for a two-day state visit to India, where he is expected to request military aid.

Both Karzai and the U.S. have sought peace talks with the Taliban and other insurgent factions in preparation for most foreign troops leaving next year after more than 12 years of war, but the efforts have borne little fruit. The Taliban seek to re-establish the strict interpretation of Islamic law they imposed for five years before being ousted in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion over its sheltering of al-Qaida’s terrorist leadership.

The insurgents last month launched a fierce new spring offensive that has in the past week alone seen the police chief of Farah province gunned down outside his home and twin bombings that killed nine people in an elite gated community for government officials and business owners outside of the southern city of Kandahar. Two bombs also exploded outside the provincial governor’s office in Nangarhar province last week, killing one police guard.

Insurgents have also targeted members of the international coalition. A roadside bomb killed four American soldiers last week in the country’s south, while another insurgent faction, Hizb-e-Islami, targeted a coalition convoy in the capital of Kabul two days later, killing two U.S. soldiers and four American contractors who were training Afghan troops to take over security.

BAGHDAD: Bombs ripped through Sunni areas in Baghdadand surrounding areas Friday, killing at least 76 people in the deadliest day in Iraq in more than eight months. The major spike in sectarian bloodshed heightened fears the country could again be veering toward civil war.

The attacks followed two days of bombings targeting Shiites, including bus stops and outdoor markets, with a total of 130 people killed since Wednesday.

Scenes of bodies sprawled across a street outside a mosque and mourners killed during a funeral procession were reminiscent of some of the worst days of retaliatory warfare between the Islamic sects that peaked in 2006-2007 as U.S. forces battled extremists on both sides.

Tensions have been intensifying since Sunnis began protesting what they say is mistreatment at the hands of the Shiite-led government, including random detentions and neglect. The protests, which began in December, have largely been peaceful, but the number of attacks rose sharply after a deadly security crackdown on a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq on April 23.

Majority Shiites control the levers of power in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. Wishing to rebuild the nation rather than revert to open warfare, they have largely restrained their militias in the past five years or so as Sunni extremist groups such as al-Qaida have frequently targeted them with large-scale attacks.

Nobody claimed responsibility for Friday’s attacks, but the fact they occurred in mainly Sunni areas raised suspicion that Shiite militants were involved. The bombs also were largely planted in the areas, as opposed to the car bombings and suicide attacks that al-Qaida in Iraq and other Sunni insurgentsare known to use.

Talal al-Zobaie, a Sunni lawmaker, called on politicians across the religious and ethnic spectrum to put aside their differences and focus on protecting the nation.

“The terrorist attacks on Sunni areas today and on Shiite areas in the past two days are an indication that some groups and regional countries are working hard to reignite the sectarian war in Iraq,” he said. “The government should admit that it has failed to secure the country and the people, and all security commanders should be replaced by efficient people who can really confront terrorism. Sectarianism that has bred armies of widows and orphans in the past is now trying to make a comeback in this country, and everybody should be aware of this.”

The areas hit Friday were all former Sunni insurgent strongholds that saw some of the fiercest fighting of the U.S.-led war as sectarian rivalries nearly tore the country apart.

The deadliest blast struck worshippers as they were leaving the main Sunni mosque in Baqouba, 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad. Another explosion went off shortly afterward as people gathered to help the wounded, leaving 41 dead and 56 wounded, according to police and hospital officials.

Grocery store owner Hassan Alwan was among the worshippers who attended Friday prayers in the al-Sariya mosque. He said he was getting ready to leave when he heard the explosion, followed by another a few minutes later.

“We rushed into the street and saw people who were killed and wounded, and other worshippers asking for help,” he said. “I do not know where the country is headed amid these attacks against bothSunnis and Shiites in Iraq.”

Baqouba was the site of some of the fiercest fighting between U.S. forces and insurgents. Al-Qaida in Iraq essentially controlled the area for years, defying numerous U.S. offensives aimed at restoring control. It also is the capital of Diyala province, a religiously mixed area that saw some of the worst atrocities as Shiite militias battled Sunni insurgents for control.

A roadside bomb exploded later Friday during a Sunni funeral procession in Madain, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Baghdad, killing eight mourners and wounding 11, police said. Two medical officials confirmed the casualties.

Pakistan (AP) — A suicide bomber targeting police killed at least 10 people in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, including the son and nephew of an Afghan official involved in peace negotiations with the Taliban, authorities said.

The bomber was riding a motorcycle and detonated his explosives as the police patrol drove by in Peshawar, said city police chief Liaqat Ali Khan.

The two Afghans who were killed, Qazi Mohammad Hilal Waqadand Mohammad Idrees, were working at their country’s consulate in Peshawar, said Afghan Consul General Syed Mohammad Ibrahim Khel in Peshawar.

However, it did not appear they were the target of the attack, Khel said.

Waqad’s father, Qazi Amin Waqad, is a member of the Afghan High Peace Council, said an official at the Afghan Embassy in Islamabad, Shakir Qarar. The council was appointed by the Afghan government to hold peace talks with the Taliban to end the 11-year-old war in neighboring Afghanistan. The peace council member was in Afghanistan when the attack occurred, and Waqad and Idrees were driving to work at the time, Qarar added.

The blast killed 10 people and wounded 42, said Khan, the Peshawar police chief. Three policemen were among the wounded. Many of the dead and wounded were on a nearby passenger bus, which bore the brunt of the explosion, said Khan.

Local TV footage showed the wreckage of the bus and the motorcycle, as rescue workers rushed wounded people to hospitals in the city.

No one immediately claimed responsibility.

The Pakistani Taliban has been waging a bloody insurgency against the government for years and has stepped up attacks ahead of next month’s parliamentary election.

Also Monday, two gunmen riding a motorcycle attacked a campaign office of an anti-Taliban political party in northwestern Pakistan, killing a worker there, police chief Khan said. The Awami National Party office is in the city of Nowshera.

Elsewhere in the northwest, a suicide bomber detonated his explosives near a vehicle carrying Awami National Party candidate, Mohammad Ahmed Khan, in Charsadda district, said local police chief Ghulam Hussain. Khan was not hurt, but one person was killed and nine were wounded, said Hussain.

On Sunday, the Taliban killed 11 people in bomb attacks on a political rally and two campaign offices in the northwest, part of their quest to disrupt the election. The group has killed at least 60 people in attacks on politicians and party workers since the beginning of April.

The Taliban have specifically targeted secular political parties that have supported military offensives against the militants in the northwest. The Taliban have largely spared Islamic parties and others who believe the government should strike a peace deal with the militants, rather than fight them.

There is a concern that the violence could benefit the parties that take a softer line toward the militants, because they are able to campaign more freely ahead of the May 11 election.

“Unless the government, the country’s independent election commission and security forces ensure that all parties can campaign freely without fear, the election may be severely compromised,” Ali Dayan Hasan, the head of Human Rights Watch in Pakistan, said in a statement issued Monday.

Bashir Jan, a senior member of the Awami National Party who survived a recent bomb attack in the southern city of Karachi, also criticized the government for not doing enough to protect candidates, but he said they were determined to carry on.

“These attacks will not deter us,” Jan said at a press conference in Karachi. “We are determined to contest elections.”

The Pakistani army on Monday finalized its plan to deploy troops to provide security during the upcoming election after discussions with civilian officials, the army said in a written statement that didn’t provide further details.

BOSTON: In photos of her as a younger woman, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva wears a low-cut blouse and has her hair teased like a 1980s rock star. After she arrived in the U.S. from Russia in 2002, she went to beauty school and did facials at a suburban day spa.

But in recent years, people noticed a change. She began wearing a hijab and cited conspiracy theories about 9/11 being a plot against Muslims.

Now known as the angry and grieving mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Tsarnaeva is drawing increased attention after federal officials say Russian authorities intercepted her phone calls, including one in which she vaguely discussed jihad with her elder son. In another, she was recorded talking to someone in southern Russia who is under FBI investigation in an unrelated case, U.S. officials said.

Tsarnaeva insists there is no mystery. She’s no terrorist, just someone who found a deeper spirituality. She insists her sons — Tamerlan, who was killed in a gunfight with police, and Dzhokhar, who was wounded and captured — are innocent.

“It’s all lies and hypocrisy,” she told The Associated Press in Dagestan. “I’m sick and tired of all this nonsense that they make up about me and my children. People know me as a regular person, and I’ve never been mixed up in any criminal intentions, especially any linked to terrorism.”

Amid the scrutiny, Tsarnaeva and her ex-husband, Anzor Tsarnaev, say they have put off the idea of any trip to the U.S. to reclaim their elder son’s body or try to visit Dzhokhar in jail. Tsarnaev told the AP on Sunday he was too ill to travel to the U.S. Tsarnaeva faces a 2012 shoplifting charge in a Boston suburb, though it was unclear whether that was a deterrent.

At a news conference in Dagestan with Anzor last week, Tsarnaeva appeared overwhelmed with grief one moment, defiant the next. “They already are talking about that we are terrorists, I am terrorist,” she said. “They already want me, him and all of us to look (like) terrorists.”

Tsarnaeva arrived in the U.S. in 2002, settling in a working-class section of Cambridge, Mass. With four children, Anzor and Zubeidat qualified for food stamps and were on and off public assistance benefits for years. The large family squeezed itself into a third-floor apartment.

Zubeidat took classes at the Catherine Hinds Institute of Esthetics, before becoming a state-licensed aesthetician. Anzor, who had studied law, fixed cars.

MANCHESTER: The nephew of a small-town Illinois mayor shot and killed five people, including two boys, before leading police on a chase that ended in an exchange of gunfire that left him dead, authorities said Wednesday.

Illinois State Police said they believe Rick O. Smith, 43, entered aManchester home through the back door and shot the victims at close range with a shotgun, leaving two women, one man and the boys dead. Two people were found in a bedroom, two in a second bedroom and the man in the hallway. A sixth victim, a 6-year-old girl, was injured and taken to a Springfield hospital.

“The offender took the 6-year-old out of the residence and put her in the hands of a neighbor,” State Police Lt. Col. Todd Kilby said.

Officials have not revealed a motive for the killings. Police said the victims are related. Authorities believe Smith and the victims were acquainted, but they didn’t provide details of the relationships.

A bystander called police and told them that Smith fled the home in a white sedan. A car chase ensued, leading authorities to the nearby town of Winchester, where Smith and officers exchanged gunfire. Officers shot Smith, and he later died at a hospital.

Police said they found a rifle, shotgun and large hunting knife in Smith’s car.

Coroner officials said they plan autopsies on the victims Thursday morning in Bloomington and identities would be released at that time.

Scott County State’s Attorney Michael Hill said Smith, of rural Morgan County, had previous convictions for reckless homicide, drugs and bad checks.

Manchester Mayor Ronald Drake confirmed that Smith was his nephew, saying he hadn’t spoken to Smith in two years, but he believed his nephew was unemployed. Drake said the last time Smith contacted him was to borrow tools.

In Manchester, yellow police tape surrounded the small one-story brick home where the victims were found. Manchester is a village of about 300 residents located about 50 miles west of Springfield.

“It’s a close-knit community,” Drake said. “Everybody talks to everybody. … We enjoy that goes on (in) town. This is just a tragedy for (the) whole town.”

The last homicide in Scott County was 20 years ago, in 1993.

Manchester resident Julie Hardwick, 48, said she lives in the same county housing authority complex as the victims. Authorities told her she couldn’t return to her home yet because of the investigation, she said.

“The kids were really nice,” Hardwick said of the family. “You couldn’t ask for better kids.”

The Rev. Robin Lyons of Manchester United Methodist Church, one of two churches in the community said, “this shows tragedy can happen anywhere.”

Two area school superintendents said they received calls from county sheriffs before 6 a.m. informing them that five people had been shot to death at a house in Manchester and that a suspect was at large.

Superintendent David Roberts of the Winchester School District and Les Stevens of the North Greene Unit District No. 3 both said they immediately canceled classes when they were told of the shootings and that other school districts did the same.

Roberts said the wounded girl is a student at Winchester Grade School and her teacher was with her at the Springfield hospital.

The school will use its own counselor, nurse and other staff members to help students who need to talk, Roberts said. Other area districts have offered to help too.

Roberts said he also will call on area ministers to be available on campus. “I’ve found that to be helpful in the past,” he said.

Nigeria: Fighting between Nigeria’s military and Islamic extremists killed at least 185 people in a fishing community in the nation’s far northeast, officials said Sunday, an attack that saw insurgents fire rocket-propelled grenades and soldiers spray machine-gun fire into neighborhoods filled with civilians.

The fighting in Baga began Friday and lasted for hours, sending people fleeing into the arid scrublands surrounding the community on Lake Chad. By Sunday, when government officials finally felt safe enough to see the destruction, homes, businesses and vehicles were burned throughout the area.

The assault marks a significant escalation in the long-running insurgency Nigeria faces in its predominantly Muslim north, with Boko Haram extremists mounting a coordinated assault on soldiers using military-grade weaponry. The killings also mark one of the deadliest incidents ever involving Boko Haram.

Authorities had found and buried at least 185 bodies as of Sunday afternoon, said Lawan Kole, a local government official in Baga. He spoke haltingly to Borno state Gov. Kashim Shettima in the Kanuri language of Nigeria’s northeast, surrounded by still-frightened villagers.

Officials could not offer a breakdown of civilian casualties versus those of soldiers and extremist fighters. Many of the bodies had been burned beyond recognition in fires that razed whole sections of the town, residents said. Those killed were buried as soon as possible, following local Muslim tradition.

Brig. Gen. Austin Edokpaye, also on the visit, did not dispute the casualty figures. Edokpaye said Boko Haram extremists used heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades in the assault, which began after soldiers surrounded a mosque they believed housed members of the radical Islamic extremist network Boko Haram. Extremists earlier had killed a military officer, the general said.

Edokpaye said extremists used civilians as human shields during the fighting — implying that soldiers opened fire in neighborhoods where they knew civilians lived.

“When we reinforced and returned to the scene the terrorists came out with heavy firepower, including (rocket-propelled grenades), which usually has a conflagration effect,” the general said.

However, local residents who spoke to an Associated Press journalist who accompanied the state officials said soldiers purposefully set the fires during the attack. Violence by security forces in the northeast targeting civilians has been widely documented by journalists and human rights activists. A similar raid in Maiduguri, Borno state’s capital, in October after extremists killed a military officer saw soldiers kill at least 30 civilians and set fires across a neighborhood.

Sunday afternoon, the burned bodies of cattle and goats still filled the streets in Baga. Bullet holes marred burned buildings. Fearful residents of the town had begun packing to leave with their remaining family members before nightfall, despite Shettima trying to convince some to stay.

“Everyone has been in the bush since Friday night; we started returning back to town because the governor came to town today,” grocer Bashir Isa said. “To get food to eat in the town now is a problem because even the markets are burnt. We are still picking corpses of women and children in the bush and creeks.”

The Islamic insurgency in Nigeria grew out of a 2009 riot led by Boko Haram members in Maiduguri that ended in a military and police crackdown that killed some 700 people. The group’s leader died in police custody in an apparent execution. From 2010 on, Islamic extremists have engaged in hit-and-run shootings and suicide bombings, attacks that have killed at least 1,548 people before Friday’s attack, according to an AP count.

In January 2012, Boko Haram launched a coordinated attack in Kano, northern Nigeria’s largest city, that killed at least 185 people as well. However, casualty numbers remain murky in Nigeria, where security and government officials often downplay figures.

Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sacrilege” in the Hausa language of Nigeria’s north, has said it wants its imprisoned members freed and Nigeria to adopt strict Shariah law across the multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people. While the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan has started a committee to look at the idea of offering an amnesty deal to extremist fighters, Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau has dismissed the idea out of hand in messages.

The Boko Haram network, which analysts and diplomats say has loose links to two other al-Qaida-aligned groups in Africa, has splintered into other groups as well. Its command-and-control structure also remains unclear. Recent Internet videos featuring Shekau have shown him with fighters carrying military weapons he said were stolen during attacks on Nigeria’s military. Those weapons have included rocket-propelled grenades and other heavy weapons.

Fighters suspected to belong to Boko Haram also have been seen in northern Mali, where heavily armed Islamic extremists took power in the weeks following a military coup in that West African nation. Analysts also have worried that Boko Haram may get its hands on weapons smuggled out of Libya following its recent civil war.

Despite the deployment of more soldiers and police to northern Nigeria, the nation’s weak central government has been unable to stop the killings. Meanwhile, violent atrocities committed by security forces against the local civilian population only fuels rage in the region.