JOS: Two bombs blamed on the Boko Haram group exploded at a crowded mosque and an elite Muslim restaurant in Nigeria’s central city of Jos on Sunday night, killing 44 people.

The blasts came hours after a woman suicide bomber blew up at a crowded evangelical Christian church service in the north-eastern city of Potiskum, killing six people.

Sunday’s attacks are the latest in a string blamed on Boko Haram that have now killed more than 250 people over a week. Observers link them to an order by the self-styled Islamic State to create mayhem during Ramazan. Boko Haram became the IS’s west Africa franchise earlier this year.

In Jos, the explosion at the Yantaya Mosque came as leading cleric Sani Yahaya of the Jama’atu Izalatul Bidia, which preaches peaceful coexistence of all religions, was addressing a crowd, according to survivors. Danladi Sani said a man robed in white opened fire, apparently targeting Yahaya, and then blew himself up. Yahaya was unharmed, he said.

Another bomb exploded at Shagalinku, a restaurant patronised by state governors and other elite politicians.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2015

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