Nigeria: Suspected double Boko Haram bomb attacks on mosque and restaurant kills 44 in Jos

The death toll following a twin bomb attack on a mosque and a restaurant in the provincial Nigerian capital of Jos has climbed to 44.

Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency coordinator Abdussalam Mohammed was quoted by AP as saying a further 67 people had been injured in the attacks and were being treated in hospital.

The two bombs in Jos, the capital of Nigeria's Plateau State which straddles the divide between the country's Muslim north and Christian south, exploded within five minutes of each other on Sunday 5 July.

The blast which ripped through Yan-Taya mosque appears to have been planned for maximum effect. The building was packed with Ramadan worshippers who had come to listen to the leading moderate preacher Sani Yahaya.

Yahaya is an advocate of peaceful coexistence between Nigeria's different faiths and vehemently opposed by Boko Haram.

Another bomb exploded in a popular local restaurant patronised by the city's Muslim elite.

One witness told Reuters: "We saw two or three vehicles coming from different directions and we started hearing gunshots from all angles and then a very loud bang, like a bomb being thrown into the mosque."

The latest explosions follow a suicide bomb attack in a church earlier the same day, in the town of Potiskum, which killed a priest and four worshippers.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks but the blasts bear all the hallmarks of a Boko Haram assault. The radical Islamist group has killed hundreds in Jos in similar attacks in the past.

More than 200 people have been killed by the Islamic State (Isis) affiliate in north-east Niger in the past week alone.

The upswing in violence in embattled Nigeria is believed to be in reaction to an IS edict calling for increased violence over the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The proclamation is thought to have spurred attacks in France, Tunisia and Kuwait at the end of June.