Two female suicide bombers have attacked a mosque in the north-eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, killing 22 worshippers, the army says.
The first bomber struck inside the mosque, while the second blew herself up outside as survivors tried to flee, eye witnesses told the BBC.
Eighteen other people were wounded in the attack, the army added.
Maiduguri is the birthplace of Islamist group Boko Haram's insurgency which has killed 20,000 people since 2009.
He said that the militant group could no longer mount "conventional attacks" against security forces or population centres.
That may be true but it does not mean the conflict is over - far from it.
The Nigerian army may have recaptured towns and villages that were controlled by the Islamist militants but Boko Haram still has bases and responded by switching tactics.
It now uses improvised explosive devices to attack the military and increasingly deploys children and women as suicide bombers to hit soft targets such as mosques.
The group is also staging cross-border attacks in neighbouring countries. Belatedly, there is now the realisation that the group is a regional threat.
Culled from www.bbc.com/news
The first bomber struck inside the mosque, while the second blew herself up outside as survivors tried to flee, eye witnesses told the BBC.
Eighteen other people were wounded in the attack, the army added.
Maiduguri is the birthplace of Islamist group Boko Haram's insurgency which has killed 20,000 people since 2009.
"We were just a few metres away from the mosque when a loud bang erupted and all we could see was dark smoke and bodies littered around,'' another witness told Associated Press news agency.Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari told the BBC last December that Nigeria had "technically won the war" against Boko Haram.
He said that the militant group could no longer mount "conventional attacks" against security forces or population centres.
That may be true but it does not mean the conflict is over - far from it.
The Nigerian army may have recaptured towns and villages that were controlled by the Islamist militants but Boko Haram still has bases and responded by switching tactics.
It now uses improvised explosive devices to attack the military and increasingly deploys children and women as suicide bombers to hit soft targets such as mosques.
The group is also staging cross-border attacks in neighbouring countries. Belatedly, there is now the realisation that the group is a regional threat.
Culled from www.bbc.com/news
No comments:
Post a Comment