POTISKUM, Nigeria, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- About half a dozen people were killed in northeastern Nigeria when two young girls detonated bombs strapped to themselves -- one day after a female suicide bomber killed nearly 20 people in a neighboring state.
At mid-afternoon Sunday two explosions killed at least six people in an open market where mobile phones are sold in Potiskum, a town in the state of Yobe in northeastern Nigeria. Witnesses said the culprits were two preteen girls.
"I saw their dead bodies. They are two young girls of about 10 years of age," trader Sani Abdu Potiskum said, according to Al Jazeera. "You only see the plaited hair and part of the upper torso."
The attack comes just a day after police say a 10-year-old girl detonated a bomb strapped to her in a live chicken market in Maiduguri, a city in the state of Borno, east of Yobe. At least 19 people were killed in the attack. On the same day, a suicide bomber detonated at a checkpoint in Potiskum, killing himself and an inspecting police officer.
No groups have claimed responsibility for the attacks, but many suspect Boko Haram, an al-Qaida-allied extremist group that has waged a terror campaign, including bombings and massive kidnappings, in Nigeria since 2009 in pursuit of an Islamic state.
The group was recently blamed for overrunning a military base in Borno near the village of Baga, sending multinational troops from Niger, Chad and Nigeria into retreat and residents fleeing in every direction. About 2,000 are still missing and presumed dead in what Amnesty International has called the "deadliest massacre" in the group's history.
