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Bomb kills 10 in northern Nigeria: military source, witness
04-07-11
By
Aminu Abubakar
KANO, Nigeria (AFP) – A bomb blast at a police beer garden
killed at least 10 people Sunday in the troubled northeastern
Nigerian city of Maiduguri where Islamists are active, a
military source and a witness said.
Hours earlier, a leading politician was shot dead in the same
city.
"The bomb was planted at the middle of the 'mammy market' and at
least 10 people have been killed and several others seriously
injured from the explosion," said an army officer who preferred
not to be named.
The so-called mammy market beer gardens are open air pubs and
eateries found around police or military barracks, open to both
security personnel and civilians.
Brigadier-General Jack Okechukwu Nwaogbo, the commander of a
crack military unit deployed a week ago to curb the unrest in
the area, confirmed the attack, saying they had so far recorded
eight deaths.
"There has been a bomb explosion at a market belonging to the
police in Wulari area of the city," Nwaogbo told AFP on the
phone from Maiduguri.
"So far we have eight dead and 13 injured. These are from those
counted at the scene," he later said.
Umar Kaulaha, a resident in the area said he had heard a "loud
bang followed by dark clouds of smoke from the beer garden".
"There was confusion and horrified cries as people scampered to
safety. I saw three military vans leaving the neighbourhood with
the dead and the wounded from the blast," Kaulaha said.
"From my estimation, around a dozen people may have died," he
added.
The open beer garden was a popular spot attracting large crowds
of drinkers especially on Sundays, Kaulaha said.
Hours before the attack, a politician of the state's ruling
party the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), was shot and killed
near his house in another part of the city.
Two motorcycle riding gunmen suspected to be Islamists shot
Mustapha Ba'le in the head, and sped off, a senior police
officer said.
And an attack on a civilian beer garden in the same city last
Sunday, left at least 25 dead and 30 wounded.
Although no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, they
bore the hallmark of Boko Haram, an extremist sect that has in
the last year carried out bombings and shot dead leading figures
in the region.
The sect claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on a beer
garden in a military barracks in northern Bauchi city that
killed 13 people and injured 30 others, on May 29, the day
President Goodluck Jonathan was sworn into office.
And it has targeted military and police personnel, community and
religious leaders, politicians, police formations, public
facilities churches and a prison.
The group has also claimed responsibility for the June 16 bomb
attack on police headquarters in the Nigerian capital Abuja that
killed at least two people, including a policeman.
They said they had been aiming for the national police chief.
Boko Haram -- the name means "Western education is sin" --
launched an uprising in 2009 which was put down by a brutal
military assault that left hundreds, mostly it sect members,
dead.
The group is fighting to establish an Islamic state in northern
Nigeria.
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