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Suicide attackers, bombs target north Nigeria city
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria: Suicide bombers attacked a military base and explosions went off Friday around a northeastern Nigerian city that is under siege from a radical Muslim sect, officials said. One blast went off outside a college where parents had arrived to pick up students.
The attacks appear to be the most complex and coordinated attacks ever carried out by the sect known locally as Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sacrilege.” The group has staged targeted assassinations and bombings around Maiduguri over the last year, killing more than 240 people this year alone, according to a count by The Associated Press.
Borno state police commissioner Simeon Midenda said one blast detonated around noon outside an Islamic college where parents had gathered. Midenda said others had entered the college grounds to attend Friday prayers at a mosque located on its campus.
A short time later, suicide bombers driving a black SUV attempted to enter a base for the military unit charged with protecting the city from Boko Haram fighters, military spokesman Lt. Col. Hassan Ifijeh Mohammed said.
The SUV couldn’t enter the gate and those inside detonated their explosives outside of the base, which damaged several buildings in the military’s compound, Mohammed said. The lieutenant colonel said only a few soldiers suffered “minor injuries” from the attack.
Mohammed said blasts occurred at three other places in Maiduguri besides the base, with no one being killed. However, government officials routinely downplay such attacks in Nigeria over political considerations. Mohammed’s claims could not be immediately verified by the AP and the police commissioner declined to say how many people had been wounded.
In recent months, Boko Haram appears to have abandoned some of its previous restraint in only targeting government and security officials. In August, it claimed responsibility for the suicide car bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria’s capital Abuja, which killed 24 people and left another 116 wounded.
