LEAD: Death toll rises in Nigeria attacks

Feb 7, 2012, 14:03 GMT

Abuja - Three people have died in a fresh wave of bomb blasts and gun attacks that targeted two northern Nigerian cities, police said Tuesday.

Radical Islamist group Boko Haram said it was behind the Monday night attacks.

Police told dpa that the owner of a pharmacy in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, and two of his employees, were killed in the blast.

In the city of Kano, two police stations where Boko Haram members were being detained were also targeted. Police said there were no deaths.

The attacks came as residents were observing Eid-el-Mulud, the Muslim festival marking the birth of the Prophet Mohammed.

Witness Farida Tahir spoke to dpa by telephone from Kano.

'Celebrations were cut short because of these attacks. There were explosions and gun shots coming from the northeastern part of the city,' she said.

Attacks on January 20 in Kano, the country's second-largest city, left 186 people dead. Despite an ongoing dusk-to-dawn curfew, the city and its environs still suffer lethal attacks.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and one of its largest oil exporters, is under pressure to contain Boko Haram's growing insurgency and avoid slipping into a civil war along religious and ethnic lines.