Praying Muslims die in Nigeria bombing Why Boko Haram attacks Muslims

Praying Muslims die in Nigeria bombing

At least 35 people are killed in an attack on a major mosque in Nigeria as people were gathering to worship, police say. FULL STORY

• NEW Bombers 'escape in chaos'  

  35 killed, 150 hurt in Nigerian mosque attack, police tell state radio

  By Aminu Abubakar, Ralph Ellis and Jason Hanna, CNN

  November 28, 2014 -- Updated 2112 GMT (0512 HKT)
  

  Report: Dozens killed in mosque bombing

  STORY HIGHLIGHTS

  • NEW: 35 killed in attack on mosque, police told Nigerian state radio
  • NEW: After explosions, gunmen shot at fleeing worshipers, police told state radio
  • No group has claimed responsibility for the attack in Kano, in northern Nigeria
  • The blasts come in a city where Islamist group Boko Haram has waged anti-government attacks
  Kano, Nigeria (CNN) -- At least 35 people were killed and 150 injured in an attack on the Kano Central Mosque in northern Nigeria, Kano state police said, according to Nigerian state broadcaster, NTA.
  
  NTA said three explosions rocked the mosque. At least three men, wearing explosives and armed with AK-47s, arrived in a Toyota Sienna van and opened fire on people fleeing the mosque, Kano Deputy Police Commissioner Sanusi N. Lemo told reporters.
  A mob apprehended and killed the men at the scene of the attack, Lemo said.
  The explosions occurred while people gathered for Friday prayers in Kano, northern Nigeria's largest city. Islamist militant group Boko Haram has a significant presence in the area and has launched deadly attacks previously, NTA and worshipers said.
  No immediate claim of responsibility was made.
  Kano is one of the areas where Boko Haram has fought an anti-government campaign to institute Sharia, or Islamic law. Attacks attributed to the group in Kano include a wave of bombings that killed 180 people in one day in 2012 and a suicide bombing that killed six people, including three police officers, at a gas station this month.
  Earlier this month, the emir of Kano and the country's former central bank governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, urged resistance against Islamist militants. Nigerian troops often rely on vigilantes and local hunters to help them fight Boko Haram in that part of the country
  Boko Haram, which means "Western education is a sin," still is believed to be holding more than 200 girls it abducted in April from a school in Chibok, Borno state.
  Also this month, Boko Haram's leader said the girls had been converted to Islam and married off, and he denied the government's claim that it had reached a ceasefire agreement with the group.
  President Goodluck Jonathan extended his condolences to the victims of the mosque attack and directed officials to conduct a full-scale investigation, NTA said.
  Journalist Aminu Abubakar reported from Kano. CNN's Jason Hanna reported and wrote in Atlanta.
  
  
  
  

  ANALYSIS

  

  Why Boko Haram attacks Muslims

  The devastating attack on the Grand Mosque in Kano, Nigeria was almost certainly the work of Boko Haram. Why are they attacking Muslims at prayer? FULL STORY
  
  

  Boko Haram steps up attacks aimed at Islamic 'establishment' in Nigeria

  By Tim Lister, CNN

  November 28, 2014 -- Updated 2256 GMT (0656 HKT)

  

  Report: Dozens killed in mosque bombing

  STORY HIGHLIGHTS

  • Since its early days Boko Haram has targeted the Muslim "establishment" in Nigeria
  • The group accuses the "establishment" of corruption and "perverting" Islam
  • Boko Haram has stepped up suicide bombings, causing mass casualties
  • Friday's attack at a mosque in Kano killed at least 35, injured 150 others

  (CNN) -- The devastating attack on the Grand Mosque in Kano, Nigeria, Friday was almost certainly the work of Boko Haram, which has stepped up its bombing campaign across northern Nigeria in recent weeks.
  

  It may seem counter-intuitive that Islamist militants should attack a mosque, but since its early days Boko Haram has targeted the Muslim "establishment" in Nigeria, accusing it of not defending the interests of Nigeria's 80 million Muslims, of corruption and of "perverting" Islam.

  One eminent member of that establishment is the emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, a former governor of Nigeria's Central Bank who frequently preaches at the Kano mosque on Fridays. The emir of Kano is the second-most influential Muslim figure in Nigeria.

  Sanusi was reportedly out of the country at the time of Friday's attack -- but two weeks ago he used Friday prayers to urge Nigerians to defend themselves against Boko Haram.

  "People must stand resolute" against a group that enslaves girls and "must not assume that the crisis will not reach their area," Sanusi said.

  The Kano attack, which authorities said killed at least 35 people and injured 150 others, is not the first aimed at a mosque, nor at an emir. Last year, at least 40 worshippers were shot dead at a mosque in Borno state, where Boko Haram is strongest. The group has also assassinated senior Muslim political and religious figures in northern Nigeria. And it has specifically targeted anyone calling for or organizing self-defense units, known as the Civilian Joint Task Force.

  Sanusi's predecessor, Emir Al Haji Ado Bayero, was the target of an assassination attempt in February 2013. His driver and bodyguards were killed. Bayero died at the age of 83 earlier this year.

  Boko Haram has stepped up suicide bombings, causing mass casualties in several northern states. Just this week, two female suicide bombers attacked a busy market in the city of Maiduguri, killing twenty-one people. And the bombing of a bus station near Mubi in Ademawa state killed some forty people.

  Boko Haram claimed to have taken control of Mubi, a town of 200,000 people, at the end of October -- a sign of its commitment to build an area in northern Nigeria ruled by Islamic law -- in addition to carrying out terror attacks. The Nigerian army -- supported by civilian vigilantes -- was able to expel Boko Haram from Mubi two weeks later, but the group still controls several towns across northeastern Nigeria, including Gwoza -- a town of nearly 300,000 in Borno state.

  According to Boko Haram's mysterious leader, Abubakar Shekau, Gwoza was evidence of the group's growing ambitions in northern Nigeria. "Thanks be to Allah, who gave victory to our brethren in Gwoza and made it a state among Islamic states," he said in August.

  Virginia Comolli, research fellow for security and development at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told CNN that the Nigerian military faces multiple problems. It has been plagued by indiscipline, desertion and mutinies, with some commanders attacked by their own men. It has developed a well-documented reputation for human rights abuses -- alienating many of the people it is meant to protect.

  Additionally, a lack of support has left many units exposed in the vast rural hinterland of the north, where Boko Haram has shown it can operate simultaneously on several fronts. Last week, for example, its fighters ambushed and killed nearly 50 fish-sellers close to Lake Chad, nearly 400 miles from Kano, despite the nearby presence of a multinational border force.

  A state of emergency in parts of northern Nigeria has had little impact on Boko Haram, and despite intense international attention the Nigerian military has been unable to rescue any of more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped earlier this year.

  The group's resumption of a campaign of suicide bombings is likely aimed at humiliating the government of President Goodluck Jonathan, who recently declared he would run for re-election in February next year. Besides its ideological aversion to democracy, which it sees as inimical to Islam, Boko Haram despises Jonathan as a southern Christian and wants to make the north ungovernable. Comolli says one of its aims is to ensure February's election cannot be held in the three northern states where emergencies have been declared. Attacking Kano, the biggest city in the north and a trade hub, is part of that strategy. (The state of Kano is one of the two most populous in Nigeria.)

  In an effort to win more international support, Nigerian officials have likened Boko Haram to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. Nigeria's ambassador in Washington, Adebowale Ibidapo Adefuye, said earlier this month: "There is no use giving us the type of support that enables us to deliver light jabs to the terrorists when what we need to give them is the killer punch."

  Dismissing claims that the army was responsible for human rights abuses as rumor and hearsay, Adeyufe said the United States needed to do more to help a partner in the battle against terrorism.

  "We find it difficult to understand how and why, in spite of the U.S. presence in Nigeria with their sophisticated military technology, Boko Haram should be expanding and becoming more deadly,'' he told an audience at the Council on Foreign Relations.

  Despite providing technical assistance in the hunt for the missing schoolgirls, the Obama administration appears wary of engagement with a military that has such a flawed reputation.

  There is evidence that Boko Haram has links with other jihadist groups. Some of its fighters spent time in Mali alongside a faction of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in early 2012, when much of that country fell under AQIM's sway for several months. Its rapid assimilation of bomb-making expertise and the use of kidnapping for ransom also suggests contacts with AQIM, says Comolli. But she believes that as AQIM has come under pressure following the French intervention in Mali, it has become less able to provide training or other help to Boko Haram.

  For now, Boko Haram remains a very much Nigerian phenomenon focused on causing mayhem at home. And it is the civilians -- in their many thousands -- who bear the brunt of its attacks.

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