It was another dreaded Friday for worshippers of Kano, the second largest city of Nigeria when
suicide bombers and gunmen attacked the main mosque and left 120 dead with another 370 injured. The gunmen opened attack after the suicide bombers struck and the incident bears the hallmark of the Boko Haram militants.
Reports indicate that hundreds of worshippers had been gathering to listen to a sermon from the city's chief imam and prayers had got under way at around 2pm, local time.
As per a witness, two bombs exploded, one after the other, in the premises of the Grand Mosque seconds after the prayers began.
The mosque's leader is the Emir of Kano, the second highest Islamic authority in the country and he had recently urged that people in the north of Nigeria should take up arms against Boko Haram. However, it is not known as to whether he was present at the time the attack took place. The Islamist organization Boko Haram has been fighting a guerilla war to bring about a hardline Islamic state since 2009 and is responsible for the kidnap of more than 200 teenage girls from a school in the northern town of Chibok in April this year. The girls are still in captivity.
Due to such attacks, over 1.5 million Nigerians who have been displaced by Boko Haram have been flocking to refugee camps across the country's northeast to add to the woes of the administration because the facilities are overcrowded and there is also a shortage of supplies.
Right now, the world is in the grip of terrorism carried out by three major outfits al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and the ISIS – each of them has a different agenda. While al-Qaeda wages war against the US, the Boko Haram wants Nigerians to prevent western cultures from taking over and the ISIS wants a totally Islamic State where only Muslims can stay.
Of course, the attack of anything that is western culture is not new to Nigeria – it has been in India also where outfits like the
Ram Sena in Bangalore and the
Shiv Sena in Mumbai rears its head once in a while.
