The explosion at the Yantaya Mosque came as leading cleric Sani Yahaya of the Jama’atu Izalatul Bidia organisation, which preaches peaceful co-existence of all religions, was addressing a crowd, according to survivors.
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This version has been corrected to show that only the mosque bombing in Jos was a suicide attack.
Kano (Nigeria), Jul 7: At least 20 people were killed in a bomb blast in the city of Zaria, northern Nigeria today, a regional governor said.
The attacks came shortly after the Ramadan fast was broken, with both sites full of people.
A restaurant and a mosque were targeted on Sunday night.
The Jos attacks were the worst in a weekend of violence in Nigeria, which is fighting a six-year-old rebellion by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, USA assistant secretary of state for African affairs, and David Rodriguez, commander USA Africa Command, made this known at a press conference last week.
On Sunday, at least 44 people died in two attacks in the central city of Jos, while five people were killed in a church attack in Yobe state on Sunday.
In power now for just over a month, the president was elected on the pledge to defeat Boko Haram. State Department spokesman John Kirby said “the United States stands with the Nigerian people in their struggle against violent extremism”, and promised to ” work closely with the Nigerian government and our worldwide partners to combat Boko Haram and assist its many victims”.
As a candidate, Muhammadu Buhari campaigned on ending the Boko Haram insurgency.
Boko Haram has since been pushed back with the help of offensives launched by troops from Chad and Niger while Cameroon has fought them off along its borders.
Boku Haram violence has been thriving in Potiskum as early as January of 2015 where three people were killed and 43 others hurt and wounded during a bombing in a market.
With the latest attacks, more than 500 people have been killed, according to AFP reporting. “Former detainees and senior military sources described how detainees were regularly tortured to death – hung on poles over fires, tossed into deep pits or interrogated using electric batons”, it said.
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Like Boko Haram, ISIS has killed scores of Muslims deemed too lax in the practice of their faith or too wavering in their loyalty.
