Scores dead in Nigerian bomb attack blamed on Boko Haram

Armed group Boko Haram is suspected of carrying out an assault on the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri on Tuesday, culminating in a suicide bombing that witnesses said killed as many as 50 people.

The attack began in the early hours of the morning when residents were woken by the sound of blasts and heavy gunfire and the screech of a fighter jet that had scrambled to protect the town.

"We are under siege," local resident Sumaila Ayuba told The Associated Press by telephone from her home. "The shooting is quite deafening."

Hours later, a man blew himself up at Gamboru cattle market, according to witnesses who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. One said he counted at least 20 bodies, The Associated Press reported. Another eyewitness and a hospital source told Reuters that up to 50 people had been killed. 

More than 30 people died in attacks over the weekend. Boko Haram's six-year-old uprising, which is aimed at carving out a state to be governed under the group’s interpretation of Islamic law, has killed some 13,000 people in Nigeria and driven 1.5 million from their homes.

Newly elected President Muhammadu Buhari announced at his inauguration Friday that he is moving the military command battling Boko Haram from Abuja, the capital, in central Nigeria, to Maiduguri. The capital of Borno state, Maiduguri is also the birthplace of Boko Haram and the largest city in northeastern Nigeria.

Buhari, a retired major general who was briefly a military dictator in the 1980s, was set to hold his first meeting Tuesday with military service chiefs, amid speculation that there will be changes in how the war against Boko Haram is conducted.

On Wednesday he is expected to travel to Chad and Niger — two countries whose troops have helped push back against Boko Haram. It is Buhari's first official trip outside Nigeria. Chad and Niger complained of a lack of cooperation with the previous administration.

Wire services