News / Nigeria

Nigeria thwarts bombing by three women from Boko Haram

Tuesday, 05 July 2016 2:36 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 05 July 2016 2:42 PM ]

The file photo shows soldiers standing by the road in Damboa, Borno state, northeastern Nigeria. (AFP)

Nigeria's soldiers have thwarted a bomb attack by three women from the Takfiri Boko Haram terrorist group in the country’s troubled northeast, military sources say.

Nigerian Army Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman said in a statement that troops fatally shot two of the female attackers early Tuesday on the outskirts of the town of Monguno in Borno state, a stronghold of Boko Haram.

The assailants were gunned down as they tried to detonate their explosives near people who have fled their homes because of ongoing fighting and violence, the military official added.

Usman said the third female attacker blew herself up in a different area where no one was harmed.

At least two civilians were injured after some of the explosives detonated even though the attackers had been shot, the military official said.

In a separate incident, the Nigerian military killed four suspected militants in an ambush early Tuesday in the Kukawa area of the same state.

Boko Haram started its campaign of militancy in 2009 with the aim of toppling the central government in Nigeria. It has so far taken the lives of at least 20,000 people and forced over 2.5 million others from their homes.

The group has pledged allegiance to the Daesh Takfiri terrorists operating mainly in Syria and Iraq.

Boko Haram has spread its attacks from northeastern Nigeria into neighboring Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

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