Suspected Islamist rebels abduct over 100 Nigeria schoolgirls ...

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Suspected Islamist insurgents have abducted more than 100 female students from a secondary school in Nigeria's northeast Borno state, a teacher said on Tuesday.

"Over 100 female students in our government secondary school at Chibok have been abducted," Audu Musa, who teaches in another public school in the area, said, adding the abductors were believed to be members of the Boko Haram Islamist sect who have previously attacked schools in the northeast.

A Nigerian official reported earlier that armed Islamist gunmen kidnapped a group of girls from a secondary school in northeast Nigeria's Borno state and set ablaze the surrounding town.

The attackers are suspected to be members of Boko Haram, a radical Islamist group whose name means "Western education is forbidden". It has repeatedly attacked schools in the northeast during an uprising that has killed thousands since 2009.

In an attack earlier this year in Borno state, witnesses said Boko Haram gunmen attacked a girls' school, forced the students to leave and ordered them to immediately return to their villages.

Violence has been rampant in the African country. Just Monday, a morning rush hour bomb killed at least 71 people at a Nigerian bus station on the outskirts of the capital, raising concerns about the spread of an Islamist insurgency after the deadliest ever attack on Abuja.

President Goodluck Jonathan pointed the finger of suspicion at Boko Haram, although there was no immediate claim of responsibility from the Islamist militants who are active mainly in the northeast. As well as the dead, police said, 124 were wounded in the first attack on the federal capital in two years.

The attack underscored the vulnerability of Nigeria's federal capital, built in the 1980s in the geographic center of the country to replace coastal Lagos as the seat of government for what is now Africa's biggest economy and top oil producer.

Boko Haram militants are increasingly targeting civilians they accuse of collaborating with the government or security forces. Amnesty International estimates the conflict has killed 1,500 people in the past year.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki condemned the bombings and said the United States stood with Nigerians as they grapple with "violent extremism." "We are outraged by these senseless acts of violence against innocent civilians," Psaki told a regular news briefing. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was "shocked and saddened by the many lives lost today in the bomb attack."

LBCI/REUTERS

Suspected Islamist rebels abduct over 100 Nigeria schoolgirls -teacher