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Gunmen set off three bombs and fired on worshippers at the central mosque of north Nigeria’s biggest city Kano for Friday prayers, witnesses said, an attack that bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram militants. |
It was not immediately possible to determine a reliable death toll in the chaotic aftermath of the attack but the area had been densely packed with worshippers.
A police spokesman in Kano declined to make any immediate comment.
“These people have bombed the mosque. I am face to face with people screaming,” said Chijjani Usman, a local reporter who had gone to the mosque in the old city for prayers himself.
The mosque is adjacent to the palace of the emir of Kano, the second highest Islamic authority in Africa’s most populous country, although the emir himself, former central bank governor Lamido Sanusi, was not present.
“Three bombs were planted in the courtyard to the mosque and they went off simultaneously,” a security source who declined to be named said.
A staff member at the palace who also witnessed the attack said: “After multiple explosions, they also opened fire. I cannot tell you the casualties because we all ran away.”
Angry youths blocked the mosque’s gates to police, who had to disperse them with tear gas to gain entry.
No one quickly claimed responsibility but suspicion quickly fell on Boko Haram, a Sunni jihadist movement whose name means “Western education is forbidden”.
Since 2009 it has fought to revive a mediaeval Islamic caliphate under strict Shariah law.
Boko Haram regards the traditional Islamic religious authorities in Nigeria with disdain, considering them a corrupt, self-serving elite that is too close to the secular government.
The insurgents have killed thousands in gun and bomb attacks on churches, schools, police stations, military and government buildings, and even mosques that do not share their radical Islamist ideology.
The insurgency has displaced more than 1mn people during its campaign focused on Nigeria’s northeast, the Red Cross told reporters yesterday, an increase on a September UN refugee agency estimate of 700,000.
Islamic leaders sometimes shy away from direct criticism of Boko Haram for fear of reprisals. But Sanusi, angered by atrocities such as the kidnapping of more than 200 schoolgirls from the village of Chibok in April, has been increasingly vocal.
He was quoted in the local press as calling on Nigerians this month to defend themselves against Boko Haram.
During a broadcast recitation of the Qur’an he was reported to have said: “These people, when they attack towns, they kill boys and enslave girls. People must stand resolute ... They should acquire what they can to defend themselves. People must not wait for soldiers to protect them.”
Persisting insecurity is dogging President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign for re-election to a second term in February 2015. He has asked parliament for approval to extend an 18-month-old state of emergency in the northeast.
Yesterday’s attack came a day after a roadside bomb tore through a bus station near a busy junction in the northeast, killing 40 people including five soldiers.
The Emir of Kano is a hugely influential figure in Nigeria, which is home to more than 80mn Muslims, most of whom live in the north.
Officially the emir is the country’s number two cleric, behind the Sultan of Sokoto, and any attack could inflame tensions in Nigeria’s second city, which is an ancient seat of Islamic study.
Sanusi was named emir earlier this year and is a prominent figure in his own right, having previously served as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
During his time in charge of the CBN, he spoke out against massive government fraud and was suspended from his post in February just as his term of office was drawing to a close.
Boko Haram has repeatedly attacked Kano before.
On November 14, a suicide bomb attack at a petrol station killed six people, including three police.
The Islamists have a record of attacking prominent clerics and in July 2012, a suicide bomber killed five people leaving Friday prayers at the home of the Shehu of Borno in the northeast city of Maiduguri.
The Shehu is Nigeria’s number three Islamic leader.
Boko Haram threatened Sanusi’s predecessor and the Sultan of Sokoto for allegedly betraying the faith by submitting to the authority of the secular government in Abuja.
In Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, civilian vigilantes said they had discovered a suspected remote-controlled device planted in the Gamboru Market area of the city.
It was successfully defused by members of the police bomb squad but as the bomb was being made safe, another device exploded nearby.
There were no casualties, as the area had been cordoned off.
“Our assumption is that the bombs were planted ahead of Friday prayers in the mosque just nearby,” civilian vigilante Babakura Adam said. “Of course, it’s Boko Haram’s handiwork because in the last few days several arrests have been made of suspected female suicide bombers.”
Adam said the arrests were made on Wednesday and Thursday.
Fears have grown in Maiduguri about an upsurge in Boko Haram attacks, after the militant Islamists took over more than two dozen towns in Borno and two neighbouring states in recent months.
The use of concealed roadside bombs would be a departure for Boko Haram, which has previously used direct hit-and-run tactics, car bombs and suicide attacks as part of its deadly campaign.
