BOMBER KILLS 50 WORSHIPPERS IN BLAST AT NIGERIA MOSQUE
Boko Haram suspected after teenager in congregation detonated explosives during prayers
At least 50 people were killed yesterday when a teenage suicide bomber blew himself up in a mosque in north-east Nigeria
The blast, blamed on Boko Haram militants, took place during early morning prayers at the Madina mosque in the Unguwar Shuwa area of Mubi, about 200 kilometres from the Adamawa state capital Yola.
It was the biggest attack in Adamawa since December last year, when two female suicide bombers killed 45 people at a market in Madagali town.
Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari, who announced nearly two years ago that Boko Haram was “technically defeated”, described the blast as “very cruel and dastardly”.
Security analysts said it again underlined the threat posed by the ISIL affiliate, despite an overall decline in deaths from attacks by the group last year.
Military and civilian militia sources in the North-east said the attack was probably in response to recent increased ground and air operations against Boko Haram.
Adamawa state police spokesman Othman Abubakar said “at least 50” people were killed in the Mubi attack, in which the bomber detonated his explosives among worshippers. “The bomber was about 17 years old,” he said later.
Asked who was responsible, Mr Abubakar said: “We don’t suspect anyone specifically, but we know those behind such kind of attacks.”
The bombing bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, the Islamist extremists whose insurgency has killed about 20,000 people.
Abubakar Sule, who lives near the mosque, said he was present during the rescue operation and that 40 people died immediately, while several others were taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries.
“The roof was blown off. People near the mosque said the prayer was mid-way when the bomber, who was in the congregation, detonated his explosives,” he said. “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 was part of a pattern of increasingly lethal strikes in the past four weeks.
The latest Global Terrorism
Index, published last week, said that deaths attributed to Boko Haram last year fell by 80 per cent.
But St-Pierre said despite this “Boko Haram remains an extremely potent and dangerous organisation” that was far from being “on the back foot”, as the military and government claimed. A civilian militia source embedded with the military said the attack was likely to have been to “shore up morale” after a series of recent losses in the remote region.
Three days ago, Boko Haram bases in the Njimiya, Parisa and Gulumba areas near the Sambisa Forest of Borno state were hit by air strikes, leading to “heavy losses”, he said.
This could also explain two videos put out on social media by Boko Haram in the past week, purporting to show its fighters in combat and dead Nigerian soldiers, he said.
A military source in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, said there had been more aerial offensives in the Marte, Kukawa, Monguno and Abadam areas of northern Borno.
“They are feeling the heat. They have lost a staggering number of fighters, so they are now fighting back in their usual dastardly way, attacking civilians,” he said.
Boko Haram briefly overran Mubi in late 2014 as its fighters rampaged across north-eastern Nigeria, seizing towns and villages in its quest to establish hard-line rule. The town’s name was changed temporarily to Madinatul Islam, or City of Islam in Arabic, during the brief Boko Haram occupation.
But it has been peaceful since the military and the civilian militia ousted them from the town.
In recent months, Boko Haram activity has been concentrated around Madagali, in the far north of Adamawa near the border with Borno.
There have been repeated raids and suicide bombings, blamed on Boko Haram remnants pushed out of their hideouts in the Sambisa Forest.
Boko Haram fighters are also said to be hiding in the Mandara mountains, which forms the border of Adamawa and Nigeria with neighbouring Cameroon, where there has also been more attacks.
Ryan Cummings, from security analysts consultancy Signal Risk, said the attack suggested that Boko Haram “has an active operational presence in Adamawa” and retained the capacity to hit hard.
A witness said that 40 people died immediately in the explosion, and that others suffered life-threatening injuries