Big News Network.com Monday 2nd June, 2014
KANO, Nigeria - At least 40 people have been killed and dozens injured when a bomb attack targeted fans at a football match in Nigeria's restive northeast, police said Monday.
The attack occurred Sunday and a military spokesman Monday said that the military on Monday arrested a key suspect in connection with the bombing.
"A key suspect in the terror bomb explosion that rocked Kabang community in Mubi, Adamawa state, has been arrested by troops who cordoned (off) the area in swift response to the explosion," defence spokesperson Chris Olukolade told reporters. The suspect is being questioned.
A police officer told AFP that the bombing left at least 40 people dead.
"The) bomb explosion at a football field killed more than 40 people," said an unnamed officer in the town of Mubi, which has seen previous attacks by Boko Haram Islamists.
However, officials contested the casualty figure. This is normal in the terror-riven country.
"So far we have 14 dead while 12 are injured, some of them critically," police spokesman for Adamawa state Usman Abubakar said by telephone.
Mubi is in the Adamawa state which has been under a state of emergency for more than a year now along with two other states.
Media reports quoted Muhammad Hassan, a Mubi resident who was at the match, saying that the blast appeared to come from within the crowd, which was walking across the pitch and heading home after the final whistle.
"Women and children were caught up in the blast," he said.
There was no responsibility claim of the bombing but suspicion for the attack immediately fell on Boko Haram Islamists. The group has stepped up its violent campaign in northeast Nigeria.
In April, they kidnapped some 200 schoolgirls. The girls are still in their custody. The group has also escalated their armed insurgency across north and central Nigeria over the past two months, repeatedly causing carnage.
Last weekend, a Boko Haram suicide bomber tried to hit an open-air viewing of a football match in the central city of Jo. But his car blew up before reaching the venue, killing three people.
A suicide bombing the week before in Jos killed 118 people, and two bombs on the outskirts of Abuja in April killed 95.
Boko Haram, now seen as the main security threat to Africa's biggest economy and top oil producer, has killed thousands since launching an uprising in 2009.
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