JOS, Nigeria (AFP) — Gunmen killed at least 162 people in Nigeria’s Kwara state in one of the deadliest attacks in the country in recent months, a Red Cross official said Wednesday.

The attack late Tuesday on a village in the west-central state came after the military recently carried out operations in the area against what it called “terrorist elements”.

Parts of Nigeria are plagued by armed gangs known as bandits — who loot villages and kidnap for ransom — as well as intercommunal violence in the central states and jihadist groups that are active in the northeast and northwest.

“Reports said that the death toll now stands at 162, as the search for more bodies continues,” Babaomo Ayodeji, Kwara state secretary of the Red Cross, said, updating an earlier toll of 67.

Earlier, a local lawmaker in the Kaiama region, Sa’idu Baba Ahmed, told AFP that between “35 to 40 dead bodies were counted” from the attack on Tuesday evening.

The attack was confirmed by police, who did not provide casualty figures, and the state government, which blamed “terrorist cells”.

“Many others escaped into the bush with gunshots,” Ahmed said, adding that more bodies could be found.

The gunmen invaded Woro village at around 6:00 pm (1700 GMT) on Tuesday and set “shops and the king’s palace ablaze”, said Ahmed.

In a separate attack in northern Katsina state, also on Tuesday, suspected bandits killed 23 civilians in suspected reprisal attacks for recent military operations which claimed 27 “militants” by the airforce, according to a security report prepared for the United Nations.

In Woro, Ahmed said the traditional king’s whereabouts were unknown. The king was named by the Red Cross official as Alhaji Salihu Umar.

Kwara state governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq condemned the attack as “a cowardly expression of frustration by terrorist cells following the ongoing counterterrorism campaigns in parts of the state”.

The Nigerian military has intensified operations against jihadists and armed bandits. The army regularly claims to have killed huge numbers of fighters.

Last month, the military said it had launched “sustained coordinated offensive operations against terrorist elements” in Kwara state and achieved notable successes.

Local media reported that the army had “neutralised” 150 bandits, a term used to mean killed.

“They successfully neutralised… terrorists, while others managed to escape into the forest,” the army said in a statement on January 30, adding it had cleared their hideouts.

“Troops also stormed remote camps hitherto inaccessible to security forces where several abandoned camps and logistics enablers were destroyed significantly degrading the terrorists’ sustainment capability,” it added.

Jihadist attacks intensified last year with the powerful Al-Qaeda affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) claiming responsibility for its first attack in Nigeria, in Kwara state last year.

Researcher and analyst Brant Philip pointed out that the latest raid occurred just four kilometres (two miles) from the site JNIM attacked last October, suggesting a “direct overlap” in JNIM and Boko Haram activity zones, with both groups appearing to have formed a “loose alliance”.

In response to the myriad security woes, authorities in Kwara state imposed curfews in certain areas and closed schools for several weeks before ordering them to reopen on Monday.

Insecurity in Africa’s most populous country has been under intense scrutiny in recent months since US President Donald Trump alleged a “genocide” of Christians in Nigeria.

The claim has been rejected by the government and many independent experts, who say Nigeria’s security crises claim the lives of both Christians and Muslims, often without distinction.