Suicide bomber targets moderate Muslim cleric killing at least 32 of the cleric’s congregation
Two bomb blasts in the north Nigerian city of Kaduna killed at least 82 people on Wednesday, officials said, in attacks that bore the hallmarks of violent group Boko Haram.
A suicide bomber targeting a moderate Muslim cleric killed at least 32 of the cleric’s congregation on a busy commercial road. Shortly after, a second bomb blast killed 50 people in the crowded Kawo market on Wednesday, a local Red Cross worker on the scene, who declined to be named, told Reuters.
Thousands were gathered for prayers with Sheikh Dahiru Bauchi in Murtala Muhammed square, and when his convoy pulled up, the bomber lunged at him before being stopped by his private security, witnesses and police said.
“The attack was targeted at the sheikh. No arrest has been made yet,” said police commissioner Shehu Umar. The bomb did not injure Bauchi, several witnesses told a foreign news agency.
Mustafa Sani, a volunteer for Bauchi’s mosque evacuating bodies, said there were 32 confirmed dead so far. “Somebody with a bomb vest … was blocked. He detonated the bomb along with the person that tried to block him,” Umar said, adding that police had only been able to confirm 25 dead, with 14 wounded.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either blast, but militant group Boko Haram has been staging attacks, especially with explosives, outside its northeastern heartlands in the past three months.
