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The problems began on Sunday when militiamen attacked a police station in Bauchi in northern Nigeria, causing dozens of deaths in clashes with police.

On Monday, the militia fired a new wave of attacks in the towns of Maiduguri, Damaturu and Wudil in northern states, predominantly Muslim, said police and villagers.

The head of the national police, Ogbonnaya Onovo , said there were 55 deaths: about 50 militiamen and five policemen.

Nigeria has taken drastic measures to prevent sectarian violence from which 12 of the 36 Nigerian states began adopting in 1999 Islamic law or Sharia in the north, the Muslim majority.

Very little is known about the most recent incident of violence, however. Northern residents refer to the Islamists as Boko Haram which means Western education is sin in the Hausa dialect.

The national police chief spoke Ogbonnaya Onovo as the Taliban militia, allegedly for his radical conservative ideas. The group apparently has no connection with the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In Damaturu, the capital of Yobe, a militia led to an explosion at police station, said the spokesman of the National Police, Emmanuel Ojukwu.

Wudil also in the district in the state of Kano, Islamist militiamen attacked another police station, according to local police spokesman Baba Muhammad in Kano. He said three militiamen were killed and two policemen were wounded in a shooting and 34 militiamen were arrested.

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The journalist from The Associated Press Salisu Rabiu contributed to this information from Kano, Nigeria.