UPDATE: Over 40 killed in twin blast in Jos

UPDATE: Over 40 killed in twin blast in Jos

People gather at the site of suicide bomb attack at Redeem Christian church in
Potiskum, Nigeria, Sunday, July 5, 2015. (AP Photo/Adamu Adamu)
JOS, (AP) — Two bombs blamed on the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram
exploded at a crowded mosque and an elite Muslim restaurant in Nigeria’s central
city of Jos, killing 44 people, officials said Monday.
Sixty-seven other people were wounded in the attacks Sunday night and were
being treated at hospitals, said National Emergency Management Agency
coordinator Abdussalam Mohammed.
The explosion at the Yantaya Mosque came as leading cleric Sani Yahaya of the
Jama’atu Izalatul Bidia organization, which preaches peaceful co-existence of all
religions, was addressing a crowd during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan,
according to survivors who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Another bomb exploded at Shagalinku, a restaurant patronized by state governors
and other elite politicians seeking specialties from Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north.
Jos is a hotspot for violent religious confrontations, located in the center of the
country where Nigeria’s majority Muslim north and mainly Christian south collide.
The city has been targeted in the past by bomb blasts claimed by Boko Haram
extremists that have killed hundreds of people.
Sunday’s attacks are the latest in a string blamed on Boko Haram that have killed
more than 200 people over the past week in northeast Nigeria.
The extremists returned Sunday to northeastern villages attacked three days
earlier, killing nine villagers and burning down 32 churches and about 300 homes,
said Stephen Apagu, chairman of a vigilante self-defense group in Borno state’s
Askira-Uba local government area.
He said the vigilantes killed three militants.
Boko Haram took over a large swath of northeastern Nigeria last year and stepped
up cross-border raids. A multinational army from Nigeria and its neighbors forced
the militants out of towns, but bombings and village attacks increased in recent
weeks, apparently in response to an Islamic State group order for more mayhem
during Ramadan. Boko Haram became the Islamic State group’s West Africa
franchise earlier this year.