Boko Haram suicide bomber kills over 50 in Nigeria
AT LEAST 50 people were killed yesterday when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a mosque in northeast Nigeria, police said, in an attack blamed on Boko Haram jihadists.
The blast happened during early morning prayers at the Madina mosque in the Unguwar Shuwa area of Mubi, some 200 kilometres by road from the Adamawa state capital, Yola.
“So far we have at least 50 dead from an attack at a mosque in Mubi,” Adamawa state police spokesman Othman Abubakar told AFP.
“Several people were injured. We don’t have the figure now because they have been taken to several hospitals for treatment.
“It was a [suicide] bomber who mingled with worshippers. He entered the mosque along with other worshippers for the morning prayers.
“It was when the prayers were on that he set off his explosives.”
Asked who was responsible, Abubakar said: “We all know the trend. We don’t suspect anyone specifically but we know those behind such kind of attacks.”
The attack bore all the hallmarks of Boko Haram, the Islam- ist militants whose insurgency has left at least 20,000 people dead since 2009.
Haruna Furo, head of the Adamawa state emergency management agency, and Musa Hamad Bello, chairman of the Mubi north local government area, both confirmed the attack.
They gave lower death tolls but both said the number of those killed was likely to rise.
Another emergency services official described the blast as “devastating”. He said only that there were “high casualties”.
Abubakar Sule, who lives near the mosque, said he had just returned home when he heard the blast.
“I was there when the rescue was on and 40 people died on the spot and several others were taken to hospital with severe and life-threatening injuries,” he added.
“The roof was blown off. People near the mosque said the prayer was mid-way when the bomber, who was obviously in the congregation, detonated his explosives.
“This is obviously the work of Boko Haram.”
Yan St-Pierre, a counter-terrorism specialist at the Modern Security Consulting Group in Berlin, said the bombing fitted a pattern of previous attacks.
“It fits with the increasing lethality and potency of suicide attacks of the organisation’s current ‘hot streak’, which started approximately four weeks ago,” he said.
The latest Global Terrorism Index, published last week, said that deaths attributed to Boko Haram in 2016 fell by 80 percent.
But St-Pierre said despite this “Boko Haram remains an extremely potent and dangerous organisation” which was far from being “on the back foot”, as the militar y has claimed.
In October 2012, at least 40 people were killed in an attack on student housing in Mubi that was widely blamed on Boko Haram.
In June 2014, at least 40 football supporters, including women and children, died in a bomb attack after a match in the Kabang area of the town.
Boko Haram briefly overran Mubi in late 2014 as its fighters rampaged across northeastern Nigeria, seizing towns and villages in its quest to establish a hardline Islamic state.
But it has been peaceful since the military and the civilian militia ousted them from the town, which is a commercial hub and home to the Adamawa State University.