Multiple explosions rocked Nigeria's second-largest city, witnesses say, just over a month after a radical Islamist sect claimed an attack there that left at least 185 people dead.
The attacks that occurred at a military checkpoint on a highway in Kano raise fears that the radical Islamist sect is taking root in the northern city.
Resident Ali Garba, a 32-year-old bus driver, said he heard at least six explosions on Wednesday, just as he was preparing to head to the mosque for dawn prayers in a densely populated Kano neighbourhood.
After that, he said, he heard gunfire for about two hours. By the time he left his house, the military had cordoned his neighbourhood to prepare for searches, forcing him back into his home.
The attack occurred during curfew hours, he said, likely reducing its impact. Authorities declined to give details as to how many people were wounded or possibly killed.
Military spokesman Lieutenant Ikedichi Iweha declined to comment on casualties, but said four people had been arrested in relation to the checkpoint attack.
Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, is carrying out increasingly sophisticated and bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict shariah law and avenge Muslim killings in Nigeria, a multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people.
This year, the feared sect is blamed for killing at least 303 people, according to an Associated Press count. At least 185 people died in Kano last month in the group's deadliest assault yet.
The northern-based group has carried out attacks across Nigeria's mostly Muslim north but its attacks have been most persistent in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, the sect's spiritual home, where people live in constant fear of bombings and drive-by killings.
However, a series of attacks over the last month targeting military and police institutions - typical Boko Haram targets - in the much bigger city of Kano, about 610 kilometres away from Maiduguri, are raising fears that the group may be taking root there too.
Authorities have vowed to stop the sect, but the frequency, boldness and scale of its attacks have subdued many citizens' faith in the security forces' ability to suppress Boko Haram.
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