Three Bombs Explode Near a Mosque in Northern Nigeria, Killing Dozens

The militants targeted one of the biggest mosques in Kano, the capital of Kano state, with a population of more than 2 million. At the time of the the attack, worshippers were attending the Friday prayer, which is the weekly mass prayer in Islam.

Sunusi Lemu, a state deputy police commissioner, told the press that the attack left 35 people dead and more than 150 wounded, The New York Times reported. Besides the official report, the real numbers are expected to be higher as witnesses reported piles of corpses in hospitals and at the crime scene. One of the witnesses, Ahmed Mohammed Soron Dinki, told the Times that he counted more than 50 bodies, of those, the majority were women and children.

Such terrorist attacks aren't news to the northern part of Africa's most populous nation, which has been suffering violence for years at the hands of Boko Haram's Islamic insurgency.

Two weeks ago, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a boarding school. That bombing killed more than 50 innocent people. The last attack before Friday's wasn't too long ago either. Just last week, two suicide bombers- one of them was identified as a woman- killed dozens of civilians in a market located in the Northern city of Maiduguri.

The Islamist extremist group Boko Haram is considered the biggest contributor to violence in the region. The group has carried out many violent attacks in the past, including attacks on markets, villages, schools, and sports events. Many believe that the last attack on Kano mosque bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram.

The extremist group gained international notoriety when they kidnapped more 200 school girls last spring as they sat for final exams.

According to the Times, Boko Haram is responsible for an estimated 95 attacks, which in total killed more than 2,000 civilians, in the first half of 2014 alone.