Nigeria suicide attacks kill 38
Boko Haram leader vows to derail election
KANO: Two suicide attacks in northeast Nigeria killed at least 38 people on Tuesday, less than six weeks out from elections, as the leader of Boko Haram vowed to disrupt the vote.
The Islamist insurgency has already forced a delay in the polls, initially scheduled for last Saturday, and officials had voiced hope that a regional military offensive could contain the bloodshed before the new election day, March 28.
But the latest wave of attacks blamed on the rebels underscored the challenge facing Nigeria and its neighbours — Cameroon, Chad and Niger — despite claims of successes in the joint operation launched this month.
“This election will not be held even if we are dead,” Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said in a new video, in what appeared to the first from the group released on Twitter.
Speaking before Mr Shekau’s threat, Niger’s president Mahamadou Issoufou vowed that his country would herald the end for the rebels, whose six-year insurgency has killed more than 13,000 people.
“Niger will be the death of Boko Haram,” he told a cheering crowd after a protest against the insurgents in the capital Niamey.
But Boko Haram has proved resilient and experts question whether the group can be overpowered in the short-term.
In Nigeria’s Borno state, three assailants in a motorised rickshaw detonated explosives at a checkpoint at Yamarkumi village, near the town of Biu.
The suicide attack killed 36 people and injured 20, a source at the Biu General Hospital said. “Most of the victims were child vendors and beggars that usually crowd the checkpoint,” the source added.
Boko Haram has repeatedly tried to seize Biu, 180km from the state capital Maiduguri, but has been repelled by troops and local vigilantes.
Some four hours later, in Potiskum, a bomber blew himself up inside al-Amir restaurant, a popular chain in northern Nigeria.
The restaurant manager and a steward were killed, while 13 staff and customers were seriously injured, a police officer and nurse at Potiskum General Hospital said.
Meanwhile, the Chadian army said its troops had engaged in fierce combat with Boko Haram militants near the town of Dikwa.
Two Chadian soldiers and “several militants were killed in the clashes”, a Chadian military source said.
In the video, Mr Shekau repeated threats against Chadian President Idriss Deby and Niger’s leaders, vowing that his fighters would outlast the multinational offensive.
He also said the insurgents freed their brothers-in-arms during a weekend raid in the Nigerian city of Gombe, rejecting a military claim that the attack was repelled.
Nigeria had long complained that lack of action from its neighbours had hampered efforts against Boko Haram and has said the new cooperation could prove decisive.
The source said that more than 200 rebels were killed in its first cross-border raid on the southeast of the country.
On Monday, police in Diffa claimed they had detained more than 160 people suspected of being allied to Boko Haram.
Cameroon’s army separately announced that it had killed 86 militants and detained more than 1,000 people suspected of having links to Boko Haram in the country’s far north.