A suicide bomber is suspected of killing five people at a crowded mosque in northeastern Nigeria, as police deploy to public places after the Christmas eve attack.
MAIDUGURI: Police suspect a suicide bomber was behind a blast that killed several worshippers at a mosque in northeastern Nigeria on Christmas eve.
A police spokesman put the death toll at five, with 35 others wounded.
The bomb exploded inside the crowded Al-Adum Juma’at Mosque at Gamboru market in Maiduguri as Muslims gathered for evening prayers.
“An unknown individual, whom we suspect to be a member of a terrorist group, entered inside the mosque, and while prayer was ongoing, we recorded an explosion,” police spokesman Nahum Daso told journalists.
Daso said the “incident may have been a suicide bombing, based on the recovery of fragments of a suspected suicide vest and witness statements.”
Police have now been deployed to markets, worship centres and other public places following the attack.
Nigeria has been battling a jihadist insurgency by Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) since 2009.
The conflict has killed at least 40,000 people and displaced around two million from their homes in the northeast.
Although largely confined to the northeast, jihadist attacks have been recorded in other parts of the West African nation.
Maiduguri itself, once the scene of nightly gun battles, has been calm in recent years with the last major attack recorded in 2021.
