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Nigeria: 5 killed as Boko Haram suicide bombers target police commissioner
Two motorcycle-riding suicide bombers (suspected to be members of the Boko Haram sect) drove into a convoy carrying a top police official in northeast Nigeria on Monday, detonating their explosives and killing at least five people, authorities said.
The attack targeted police commissioner Mamman Sule who was being driven in a convoy toward his offices, near the governor’s office in Jalingo, the capital of Taraba state, said police spokesman Ibiang Mbaseki. The bombers missed injuring Sule, but the explosives caused massive damage at a roadside market and blew out the glass windows of the nearby state Ministry of Finance building, witnesses said.
The commissioner “was the prime target,” Mr. Mbaseki said.
An Associated Press reporter later saw seven corpses, including those of the suicide bombers, at a local hospital.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. It comes after bombers attacked Christian worship services Sunday at a university campus and a church in northern Nigeria, killing at least 21 people.
Sunday’s attacks mirrored others carried out by a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram.
Representatives of Boko Haram, who typically speak to journalists at times of their choosing in telephone conference calls, could not immediately be reached for comment.
