Three Suspected Nigerian Islamists Killed in Explosion
Three suspected members of the Boko Haram sect were killed while assembling bombs in the Nigerian city of Maiduguri, considered the group's stronghold, an army spokesman said Saturday.
The explosion in the Kaleri suburb of the northern city on Friday destroyed a house and dismembered the three Islamist sect members, Lieutenant Colonel Hassan Mohammed of the special military unit in Maiduguri said.
"We found some assembled IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and a large amount of bomb-making components. It is certain the victims of the explosion were Boko Haram members who got killed while coupling IEDs in an accidental explosion," Mohammed said.
Other items recovered at the scene included remote control devices, wrist watch timers, metallic drums and copies of the Koran, he said.
The sect converts homes into bomb-making factories for attacks, the spokesman said.
As well as in Maiduguri, there have been accidental and fatal explosions in suspected Boko Haram bomb-making factories in the northern cities of Damaturu and Kaduna in recent months.
Gunmen shot dead a soldier Friday in the northern city of Kano where members of Boko Haram recently killed 185 people in coordinated bomb and gun attacks, residents said.
Violence blamed on the sect, whose goals remain largely unclear, has since mid-2009 claimed more than 1,000 lives, including more than 300 this year alone, according to Agence France Presse and rights groups.
Source: Agence France Presse
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