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Nigeria: Bomb explodes outside church – Islamist sect suspected
Members of the sect have been blamed for killing at least 289 people this year alone, according to an Associated Press count. The group’s leader says its campaign of violence also is aimed at avenging Muslim deaths and pushing for strict Shariah law across multiethnic Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million people.
The sect’s attacks, including those specifically targeting Christians, have widened distrust between the two faiths in Africa’s most populous nation. Nigeria is largely split between a Christian south and a Muslim north, and most of Boko Haram’s previous attacks have taken place in the north.
Bombs have struck Suleja in the past. During Nigeria’s April election, a bomb planted at an election office in the city killed 16 people. Another bomb at a church exploded in July in the city, killing three people.
In nearby Madalla, another town in Niger state, a car bomb exploded outside St. Theresa Catholic Church there, killing at least 44 people. Authorities have blamed all the previous attacks in Suleja on Boko Haram.
Meanwhile, authorities blamed the group for killing two people Saturday in Nigeria’s northeast. There, gunmen shot dead an Islamic cleric and a local politician in separate attacks, police said.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
