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Suspected Islamic terrorists killed as many as 20 Christian worshippers
in an attack on a makeshift church at a university in northern Nigeria. By Mike Pflanz, Nairobi 3:46PM BST 29 Apr 2012
The Telegraph UK Several small bombs, believed to have been fashioned from fizzy drinks
cans, were thrown into a lecture hall that was being used for a Sunday
morning service in Kano, a city that has been repeatedly attacked by
Muslim radicals.
The explosions killed one person and injured many others. But as the
crowd fled the lecture hall, gunmen waiting outside opened fire with
automatic rifles. Several dozen people who had been unable to enter the building, at
Kano's Bayero University, who were listening to the service outdoors
were also targeted. Within minutes, as many as 19 others were killed, and their bodies
littered the campus grounds as the gunfire continued for up to half an
hour more, witnesses said. "I was inside and we were preparing for a prayer when there was the
sound of motorbikes driving fast and then the first explosion," one
student worshipper, who gave her name only as Grace, said. "Everything then happened very fast. There were more bombs, I think, and
so many gunshots, there was too much noise and people were panicking." The attack started at 9.30am as several hundred people attended the
church services, said Mohammed Suleiman, a history lecturer at the
university. "For over 30 minutes a series of bomb explosions and gun shots took over
the old campus, around the academic blocks," he said. "Our school security men had to run for their dear lives. You can see
smoke all over." No-one immediately claimed responsibility for the
attack, but the use of motorcycles, small improvised explosives and then
targeted gunfire meant the strike bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram,
northern Nigeria's al-Qaeda-linked insurgents. The group was responsible for an attack on a church in Nigeria's
capital, Abuja, on Christmas Day, that left 44 people, many of them
Christians, dead. Another attack over Easter that killed 41 people was
also blamed on Boko Haram. Once a small outfit pledged only on bringing strict Islamic law to
northern Nigeria, the organisation has in recent months shown an
increasingly militant agenda. It is known to have at least moral support
from al-Qaeda. Nigeria's army arrived soon after yesterday's shooting but it is
understood that the attackers were able to escape without being arrested. The strike came less than 72 hours after bomb attacks at the offices of
the This Day newspaper in Abuja and the northern city of Kaduna killed
at least nine people. Several others are still being treated in hospital. Boko Haram carried out attacks in January in Kano, the largest city in
Nigeria's mainly Muslim north, when coordinated bombings and shootings
left at least 185 dead in the extremists' deadliest attack yet. :: One worshipper was killed and 16 wounded in a grenade explosion at a
church in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, yesterday. Police said the church pastor was concluding the service when a man who
had "camouflaged" himself as a member of the congregation threw the
grenade and then ran out into the street. It is the latest in a series of small explosions across Nairobi that
followed Kenya's offensive into neighbouring Somalia to crush
al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist organisation. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/nigeri...
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