70 Killed By Boko Haram In Two Separate Attacks

 

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria: More than 70 people were killed in two separate attacks in northeast Nigeria, police and state authorities said on Monday, with suspicions falling on the banned Islamist militant group Boko Haram.


The attacks on Sunday—one on a busy market in Borno state, killing 45, and the other in neighboring Adamawa, which left at least 26 dead—came just a week after a change of the guard at the top of Nigeria’s military. New chief of defense Air Marshall Alex Badeh, who comes from Adamawa, had said he wanted a swift end to the bloody insurgency, which has claimed thousands of lives since 2009. But the latest attacks will likely renew calls for a more effective strategy, possibly considering non-military means such as dialogue or wider development schemes to prevent radicalization in the impoverished north.