Four women suicide bombers blew themselves up near the city of Maiduguri in northeastern Nigeria Saturday, authorities said, after security guards challenged them and tried to carry out a search.
Nigerian authorities said a fifth person also was killed and 10 others were wounded by the blasts, which appeared to be the latest in a string of attacks by the Boko Haram Islamist extremist group.
Boko Haram suicide bombers killed 42 people in attacks on mosques Friday in Maiduguri, the largest city in northeastern Nigeria, and in Yola, 400 kilometers to the south.
A spokesman for the government's emergency management agency, Sani Datti, said the would-be attackers were intercepted by members of a joint force of military and civilians tasked with trying to block Boko Haram attackers.
A government statement said the incident occurred when the women tried to enter the Dala Ajheri area of Maiduguri.
"Three of the female suicide bombers detonated the explosives in their bodies immediately," spokesman Sani Datti said. "The fourth one was intercepted but later died."
Nigeria's military has claimed a series of successes against Boko Haram jihadists, but the group's attacks have killed hundreds of people in recent weeks and months.
President Muhammadu Buhari has given his military commanders until December to end the insurgency, which has left at least 17,000 people dead and more than 2.5 million homeless since 2009.
Maiduguri is the area where Boko Haram was formed about six years ago, with the avowed goal of creating a hardline Islamic state in northeastern Nigeria. Boko Haram has regularly targeted mosques and religious leaders who do not share the group's extremist ideology.
