Suicide bomber hits Maiduguri again! ...dozens killed

A suspected female suicide bomber killed at least 12 people on Tuesday in Maiduguri, capital of Nigeria’s Borno State, military and hospital sources said.

The attack is coming three days after a multiple bomb attack in the city killed more than 50.

A loud blast was heard in Maiduguri just after 4 p.m. (1500 GMT) and a military source at the scene said a woman had detonated her bomb at a roundabout near the Monday Market, which has been attacked numerous times before.

An eyewitness said he believed it had been the work of a female suicide bomber, and that he had seen her charred and dismembered body.

“The place was very busy. Many people were waiting to pick up taxis and some were walking down the road when the blast occurred,” Reuters quoted Abdulaziz Olawale as saying.

A source at the State Specialist Hospital said 12 corpses had been brought to the morgue.

Another bomb was discovered and defused by police on Tuesday in Babalayi, a densely populated district of Maiduguri and about 500 meters from the scene of Thursday’s explosion, a member of the civilian joint taskforce said. A police spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

After Nigeria’s general elections’ postponement on February 7 by the electoral body, the insurgents have been thrown onto the defensive after Chadian and Nigerien troops launched offensives in coordination with the Nigerian army, successfully reclaiming some important towns in Borno.

Over 30 communities have been reclaimed from the terrorist group, with Nigerian forces pushing the militants out of Adamawa State.

The Islamist Boko Haram insurgents have been fighting for six years to revive a medieval Islamic caliphate in north-east Nigeria.

In the last week of February, at least 15 persons died and 53 others were injured after a suicide bomber detonated a bomb at the Tashar Dan-Borno Motor Park in Potiskum town, Yobe State.

In the heat of the confusion, an eyewitness said a female suicide bomber, who carried out the attack, alighted from a tricycle opposite the Motor Park and rushed towards a loaded bus when the explosive went off.

However, the Nigerian police said the suicide bomber was a man, not a teenage girl as reported by some eyewitnesses.

Credit: Channels