Sheikh Yahaya is from the Jama’atu Izalatul Bidia organisation, which promotes peaceful co-existence between religions.
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Residents said the explosion happened at around 8.30am local time (7.30am GMT), during a busy period before the midday heat. People fled into different directions but they kept on shooting.
The terrorist reportedly disguised as a woman to perpetrate his evil act, killing a total of 14 people in the process on July 11th, 2015.
Speaking for his leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the man in the recording said, “we announce to you the good news of the expansion of the caliphate to West Africa”.
Of the 44 dead, 23 were killed at the restaurant and 21 at the mosque, Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (Nema) says.
Boko Haram chief Abubakar Shekau has explicitly threatened Chad in the previous.
The attack – and a botched suicide bombing on a bus station in Maiduguri on Saturday morning – took the death toll from Boko Haram attacks in Nigeria to almost 580 since May 29, according to AFP reporting.
Chad, Niger, Cameroon, Nigeria and Benin have launched a joint military operation to fight the insurgency, which has killed thousands and threatens to destabilize the region.
On June 15, two suicide bomb attacks took place in N’Djamena, leaving 38 people killed and over 100 injured.
Idris said numerous motorists had to wait at a distance though as the soldiers pushed the insurgents back from the highway.
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, who came to power on May 29, has made defeating Boko Haram a top priority.
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Speaking on the number of Christians forced to join the ferocious sect, the report claimed, “It’s nearly certainly bound to be about 5,000, but some people put the numbers up way higher”.
