Boko Haram extremists struck the northeast Nigerian city of Maiduguri for the first time in months Monday with rocket-propelled grenades and multiple suicide bombers, witnesses said.

At least 15 people were killed but the toll was feared many times higher, said ABC news.

Nigerian troops "intercepted and destroyed" 10 suicide bombers, according to PR Nigeria, an agency that disseminates government news.

Maiduguri, the city under attack, is the birthplace of Boko Haram, which emerged as a much more radical entity after Nigerian security forces attacked their compound there, killing 700 people in 2009.

Militants firing indiscriminately from the back of three trucks attacked the outlying village of Dawari, soldiers engaged them, and as people were fleeing, a woman ran into a suburb yelling "Boko Haram, Boko Haram." When people gathered, she detonated herself, according to village head Bulama Isa.

The attack comes as Nigeria's government says it has contained the uprising that has killed 20,000 people in six years and driven 2.3 million people from their homes.

Source: MENA