MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — Men riding motorcycles threw bombs into outdoor beer gardens Sunday night in northeastern Nigeria, killing at least 25 people in attacks bearing striking similarities to others carried out by a radical Islamic sect in the region, police said.
The bombs exploded in Maiduguri, home to the sect known as Boko Haram. While the sect did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack late Sunday, the assault bore the hallmarks of the group now waging assassinations and attacks against the government.
The bombs exploded around 5 p.m. at several outdoor beer gardens in Maidu guri, about 540 miles from the capital, Abuja. Borno state, where Maiduguri is the capital, is under Muslim Sharia law, but several outdoor beer gardens exist.
Lawal Abdullahi, a spokesman for the federal Nigeria Police Force, said the bombs struck at least three beer parlors in the state.
Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege” in the local Hausa language, wants the implementation of strict Sharia law across Nigeria’s north. The group claimed responsibility for an attack this month that killed at least two people at the federal police headquarters in Abuja.
Nigeria, a nation of 150 million people, is divided between the Christian-dominated south and the Muslim north. A dozen states across Nigeria’s north already have Sharia law in place, though the area remains under the control of secular state governments.
