Suicide bombers kill officer in Maiduguri
(Nigeria) Two suicide bombers killed an Air Force officer at a
checkpoint in a late-night attack in Maiduguri, Borno State, witnesses and
police said Wednesday.
They blamed the attack on Boko Haram Islamic extremists
responsible for a slew of such attacks that have killed hundreds this year in
Nigeria and neighboring Cameroon, Chad and Niger.
Tuesday night's explosion occurred hours after Nigeria's
military ordered officers to report for duty to a new multinational army based
in N'Djamena, Chad's capital, to launch a long-delayed offensive against
Nigeria's home-grown insurgents.
Police Commissioner Aderemi Opadokun said a lieutenant died
and a woman was injured when two suicide bombers approached a checkpoint and
one exploded. Both bombers died, he said.
The explosion occurred at a traffic circle leading to
Maiduguri's international airport, which was closed for months after a December
2014 Boko Haram attack in which several Air Force aircraft were destroyed.
Travelers were forced to use roads made dangerous by
frequent insurgent attacks until the airport was reopened in July, after troops
from Chad and Nigeria drove the extremists out of some 25 towns held for months
in what they had declared an Islamic caliphate. The insurgents have returned to
hit-and-run tactics and suicide bombings.
In one bold attack last week, the extremists ambushed the
lead vehicle in a convoy carrying Nigeria's new chief of army staff. One
soldier and five attackers were killed in a firefight there.
More than 1,000 people have been killed since President
Muhammadu Buhari was elected in March with a pledge to annihilate the
militants, whose six-year-old uprising has killed a total of about 20,000
people. Nearly two million have been driven from their homes, some across
borders.
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