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Maiduguri — Two suicide bomb blasts along a highway in northeast Nigeria killed at least 10 people on Thursday afternoon, state police said, the latest in a string of almost daily attacks by suspected Islamist militants.

A female suicide bomber killed seven and injured 13 at a village called Malari on the main road from Bama to Konduga while a second suicide bomber killed three in blast along the same road, Borno state police chief Aderemi Opadokun said.

A military source said in both cases the suicide bombers targeted crowded areas where locals sell fruit along the highway, which runs southeast of the state capital Maiduguri.

Thousands of people have been killed and about 1.5 million displaced during Boko Haram’s six-year fight to create an Islamic caliphate in the northeast of Africa’s top oil producer.

Boko Haram controlled an area roughly the size of Belgium at the end of 2014 before a military offensive seized much of the territory in the first few months of this year.

The militants have since mostly resorted to deadly hit-and-run attacks on remote villages and the use of suicide bombers.

Opadokun also confirmed Boko Haram attacked the town of Kukawa not far from Lake Chad on Wednesday evening. He said the attackers killed “many” and burned down houses.

The state police chief did not give a death toll from the attack. He said at least eight injured residents from Kakuawa had been treated at a Maiduguri hospital.

Meanwhile, Boko Haram fighters have gunned down at least 80 Muslims praying in mosques in a northeastern Nigerian town during the holy month of Ramadan, a member of a local vigilante group said.

Al Jazeera’s Yvonne Ndege, reporting from Abuja on Thursday, said the victims, mostly men, were killed in the remote town of Kukawa, and that the death toll was expected to rise.

“We’re being told that Boko Haram fighters arrived in seven cars and on nine motorcycles in the town before embarking on their attack, and that over 1,000 Nigerian soldiers were in Kanwa, about 11km away but didn’t come to the rescue,” our correspondent said.

The attack took place on Wednesday night but news of the gruesome incident only came to light on Thursday, our correspondent said.

The attack on Kukawa came a day after the group attacked a village 35km away and killed another 48 men and boys.

The people of Kukawa were in several mosques, praying ahead of breaking their daylong fast, when the fighters attacked, the official said on Thursday.

Officials in Kukawa said some fighters also broke into people’s homes, killing women and children as they prepared the evening meal.

Kukawa is 180km northeast of Maiduguri, the biggest city in northeast Nigeria and the birthplace of Boko Haram.

The Nigerian group often defiles mosques where it believes imams espouse too moderate a form of Islam.

Wednesday’s attack follows a directive from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group for fighters to increase attacks during Ramadan.

Boko Haram this year became ISIL’s West African franchise.

On Tuesday night, Boko Haram invaded the village of Mussaram, ordered men and women to separate and then opened fire on the men and boys, witnesses said.

“A total of 48 males died on the spot while 17 others escaped with serious injuries,” said Maidugu Bida, a local vigilante group commander, based in nearby Monguno. — Al Jazeera