Maiduguri - A suicide bomber targeting worshippers at a mosque in a remote village killed five people and wounded dozens, a security source said on Saturday.
The source, who declined to be named, said Muslims in the village of Konduga, Borno state, were observing Friday prayers when the pick-up truck approached.
A local vigilante group stopped the truck to inspect it and the bomber then detonated the bomb a few metres away from the mosque, he said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Boko Haram is likely to be the prime suspect.
In a separate attack, also on Friday evening, insurgents fired on a military base in the northeastern town of Damboa with rocket-propelled grenades, Gideon Jubrin, police spokesman for Borno state, said. He had no information on casualties.
Another security source said the raid was a revenge mission after dozens of Boko Haram militants were killed in an air and ground offensive on two of their camps in areas of Borno called Yejiwa and Alagarno.
Witness Mohammadu Sheriff, speaking of the attack in the village of Konduga, said he had seen the vigilantes conducting checks on a pick-up van carrying firewood.
"Suddenly it exploded," he told Reuters by phone. "It would have been more devastating if the bomber had succeeded in driving near the mosque, which had over a thousand people in it."
- Reuters
We Love Comments