MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Two female suicide bombers killed 22 people Wednesday at a mosque outside the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, a military spokesman said.
The attack, which also wounded 18 people, occurred during morning prayers in the village of Ummarari, four miles from the center the capital of Borno state and heartland of Boko Haram.
It was the first such assault in the northeast since early February, when two suicide bombers — also women — blew themselves up at a camp for internally displaced people in Dikwa, 50 miles from Maiduguri.
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"Sadly, 22 people were killed and 18 others sustained various degrees of injuries... The first attack targeted a mosque, while the second blast was about 50 meters away, a few minutes later," military spokesman Col. Sani Usman said.
Malum Farouk, a member of a grassroots security group in a civilian joint task force, said one of the bombers Wednesday was disguised as a male worshiper.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but it resembled others carried out by Boko Haram in its campaign to carve out an Islamic state in the region.
