3 Muslims injured in failed suicide bombing attack on mosque

oge okonkwo

April 21, 2015 10:52 AM

Reports say the would-be bomber detonated his explosives a few yards from an open-air mosque in the Dogo Tebo area of Potiskum shortly after afternoon prayers

File photo: Mosque attacked by Boko Haram in Kano

About three Shiite Muslims have been injured in a failed suspected Boko Haram suicide attack that was targeted at a group of Muslims in a mosque, in Potiskum, Yobe state.

Reports say the would-be bomber detonated his explosives a few yards from an open-air mosque in the Dogo Tebo area of Potiskum shortly after afternoon prayers.

AFP reports that a local resident, Mukhtar Ubale supported the narrative of two witnesses at the site of the incident.

He said: “Three worshippers were hit by shrapnel and sustained mild injuries while the bomber’s thighs and legs were blown off.”

Another resident who witnessed the explosion, Zakari Kabiru, said the bomber, thought to be aged about 30, was taken to hospital but his chances of survival were slim.

“Only his torso was intact but the lower parts of his body were shattered,” he said, blaming the Sunni jihadist group Boko Haram for the attack.

Boko Haram, whose insurgency to create a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria has killed at least 15,000 since 2009, condemns Shias as heretics who should be killed.

The group has carried out several suicide and bombing attacks on Potiskum, which is the commercial hub of Yobe state and one of the worst hit by the violence.

Last November at least 15 people were killed and dozens injured from a suicide attack on a Shia Muslim Ashura festival procession, which marks the death of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.

Gun attacks by soldiers that followed left several others dead.

‎In July 2014, a blast rocked the same Saqafa mosque shortly after evening prayers, leaving four dead.

A second explosion went off moments later at a mosque in the town’s Anguwar Bolawa area, in the compound of the chief imam, killing at least two worshippers.

A four-nation military offensive of Nigeria and its neighbours has pushed Boko Haram out of captured territory since February.

Security analysts have warned the group would revert to its previous tactics of suicide and bomb attacks against so-called “soft targets” such as crowded markets and busy transport hubs.

oge okonkwo