Nigeria will deploy an army battalion to a district in the west of the country where suspected jihadist fighters killed 170 people in attacks in two villages in the region on Tuesday night, the office of the president has said.

In the country’s deadliest armed assault this year, gunmen attacked Woro and Nuku villages in Kaiama district in Kwara state, shooting residents, razing homes and looting shops.

Footage broadcast by local news stations showed bodies lying in blood on the ground, some with their hands tied, and burning houses.

Residents told Reuters the attackers were jihadists who had long preached in the village, urging locals to abandon the Nigerian state and adopt sharia rule. When villagers refused, the militants opened fire.

About 38 houses were destroyed, said Sa’idu Baba Ahmed, a lawmaker representing the district at the state assembly. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.

In a statement, the office of Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, condemned Tuesday’s attack as “cowardly” and said a Nigerian army battalion would be deployed to Kaiama, the local government area where the attack happened. Kaiama had limited security presence until now.

“President Tinubu said the new military command will spearhead Operation Savannah Shield to checkmate the barbaric terrorists and protect defenceless communities,” the statement said. It added that the gunmen had targeted villagers who had rejected attempts to impose extremist rule.

The incidents were the latest in a series of repeated and widespread acts of violence by jihadists and other armed groups in Nigeria. The country is experiencing a jihadist insurgency in the north-east and north-west, as well as a surge in looting and kidnapping for ransom by armed groups known as “bandits” in the north-west and north-central regions.

The armed groups in Nigeria include at least two affiliated with Islamic State: an offshoot of the Boko Haram extremist group known as the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and the lesser-known Islamic State Sahel Province, known locally as Lakurawa.

The military has in the past said the Lakurawa has its roots in neighbouring Niger and that it became more active in Nigeria’s border communities since a 2023 military coup. Kwara borders Niger state, which is targeted increasingly by armed groups and is a hotspot where ISWAP and other armed groups have stepped up village attacks and mass kidnappings. The violence raises fears that jihadist factions from the north are pushing south.

The military has intensified operations against jihadists and armed bandits and regularly claims to have killed huge numbers of fighters. It said last month that it had launched “sustained coordinated offensive operations against terrorist elements” in Kwara state and achieved notable successes.

Insecurity in Africa’s most populous country has been under intense scrutiny in recent months since the US president, Donald Trump, alleged that there was a “genocide” of Christians happening in Nigeria. The claim has been rejected by the Nigerian government and many independent experts, who say the country’s security crises claim the lives of Christians and Muslims, often without distinction.

Elsewhere on Tuesday, unknown gunmen killed at least 13 people in Doma village in the north-western state of Katsina, a police spokesman said.