At least 92 dead in Nigeria mosque blast

At least 92 bodies were counted in a Nigerian hospital morgue after a suicide bomb and gun attack at the main mosque in Kano city, an AFP reporter said.

The correspondent counted the bodies at the Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital, where hundreds of people used torchlights on their mobile phones in a desperate attempt to identify loved ones.

A rescue official told AFP earlier that victims had been brought to at least three other hospitals and emergency staff were working on updated casualty figure.

Suicide bombers and gunmen opened fire Friday during weekly prayers at the Grand Mosque in Kano, a mosque of one of Nigeria’s top Islamic leaders

The mosque is attached to the palace of the Emir of Kano Muhammad Sanusi II, Nigeria’s second most senior Muslim cleric, who just last week urged civilians to take up arms against Boko Haram.

The blasts came after a bomb attack was foiled against a mosque in the northeastern city of Maiduguri earlier on Friday, five days after two female suicide bombers killed over 45 people in the city.

National police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu told AFP that the bombers blew themselves up in quick succession then “gunmen opened fire on those who were trying to escape”.

Ojukwu said he did not know whether the suicide bombers were male or female, after a spate of attacks by women in recent months, and did not give an exact figure on the number of gunmen.

But he said an angry mob killed four of the shooters in the chaotic aftermath.

Influential figure

Worshiper Aminu Abdullahi and local resident Hajara Tukur both said that there were two explosions in quick succession and a third in a nearby road.

A senior rescue official said 64 bodies had been brought to just one Kano area hospital, while 126 people had been admitted with injuries at three facilities.

“Those figures are going to climb,” he said on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The Emir of Kano last week told worshipers at the same mosque that northerners should take up arms against Boko Haram, which has been fighting for a hardline Islamic state since 2009.

He also cast doubt on Nigerian troops’ ability to protect civilians and end the insurgency, in rare public comments by a cleric on political and military affairs.

The emir, who is currently thought to be out of the country, is a hugely influential figure in Nigeria, which is home to more than 80 million Muslims, most of whom live in the north.

Officially the emir is the country’s number two cleric, behind the Sultan of Sokoto, and any attack could inflame tensions in Nigeria’s second city, which is an ancient seat of Islamic study.

Sanusi was named emir earlier this year and is a prominent figure in his own right, having previously served as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.

During his time in charge of the CBN, he spoke out against massive government fraud and was suspended from his post in February just as his term of office was drawing to a close.