Multiple explosions staged by suspected suicide bombers rocked the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, killing at least 23 people and wounding more than 100 others, police said on Tuesday, .

The three blasts, which struck on Monday evening, came after an attack on a military post overnight Sunday to Monday, which authorities blamed on suspected jihadists.

Combined with the attack on the military position the evening prior and a mosque bombing in December, the assaults have wrecked a peaceful stretch in the city, which had become a relative oasis of calm as Nigeria's long-running insurgency was pushed to the rural hinterlands.

Fighters from Boko Haram and rival jihadist group Islamic State West Africa Province have recently stepped up attacks in northeastern Nigeria.

Their 16-year campaign to establish a caliphate in the country has killed more than 40,000 people and displaced around two million.

"Preliminary investigation reveals that the incidents were carried out by suspected suicide bombers," police spokesman Nahum Kenneth Daso said in a statement.

An anti-jihadist militia member said the death toll from the explosions in the city could be as high as 31.

Police said early on Tuesday that "normalcy has been fully restored in the affected areas" and that security forces had increased their "presence and surveillance across Maiduguri and its environs to prevent any further occurrences".

Borno State governor Babagana Zulum called the apparent bombings "barbaric" and said "the recent surge in attacks is not unconnected with intense military operations in the Sambisa forest," a known jihadist stronghold. (AFP)



Edited by Thomas McAlinden