Suspected Islamist Militants Kill 85 in Blasts, Raid on Nigerian Village

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Suspected Islamist militants have killed at least 85 people in northeastern Nigeria, witnesses and officials said on Sunday, in a further setback to President Goodluck Jonathan's military campaign.

Twin bomb blasts in the city of Maiduguri killed at least 46 people on Saturday evening while, around 30 miles away, dozens of gunmen were razing a farming village, shooting dead another 39.

The attacks will heap pressure on Jonathan, whose intensified military push to end the Islamist sect Boko Haram's four-and-a-half-year-old insurgency has been running for almost a year.

While the bloodshed has not diminished, the army had at least had some success in confining it to remote rural areas in recent months, so that the attack on a densely populated market area in Maiduguri will be seen as a setback.

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