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Twin Nigeria car bombs kill at least 118

– UN sanctions, emergency rule –

Nigeria is under the spotlight as never before over its response to Boko Haram, given the global attention on the plight of the missing girls.

On the day of the mass abduction, the militants launched a car bomb attack on a bus station in a suburb of the capital Abuja which killed 75 and are suspected of a copy-cat attack in the same location on May 1 which left 19 dead.

Nigeria has concentrated on a mainly military response to Boko Haram in the northeast and on Tuesday, parliament approved a further six-month extension to a state of emergency in the states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.

Jonathan had requested a continuation of the special powers because of what he said was the “daunting” security situation and mounting civilian casualties.

More than 2,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed this year alone as a result of the violence and the military’s response, according to NEMA, human rights and monitoring groups.

But critics have called into question the military’s reliance on conventional tactics to fight an enemy waging a guerrilla war and urged “soft power” strategies to be used at the same time.

Diplomats said on Tuesday that Nigeria had asked a UN Security Council committee that deals with sanctions against Al-Qaeda-linked groups to list Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation.

The United States and a number of other countries have already proscribed the militants.

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Sporadic attacks in Cameroon, Chad and Niger have meanwhile increased fears of a regional threat and on Saturday, Jonathan and his counterparts from neighbouring countries agreed to boost their co-operation to tackle the problem.

He said “every necessary measure” should be taken to find the still 223 missing schoolgirls, while surrounding countries would contribute a battalion of troops each to patrol the border region and there would be a crackdown on arms trafficking.

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