10 Year Old Suicide Bomber Detonates at Civilian Crowd Killing 20 and Wounding Many More

DAKAR, Senegal — A girl perhaps no more than 10 years old detonated powerful explosives concealed under her veil at a crowded northern Nigeria market on Saturday, killing as many as 20 people and wounding many more.

The blast inflicted devastating damage on shoppers at the Monday Market in Maiduguri, the shopping hub in a city that is at the heart of the Boko Haram insurgency. The explosion, witnessed by dozens of people, represented a new tactic in the Islamists’ campaign with their decision to use perhaps their youngest-ever suicide bomber.

The terrorist group has increasingly employed women as suicide bombers, even as it has stepped up its abductions of girls across northeast Nigeria, including the kidnapping of more than 200 in the town of Chibok last April. Late last year, two women hit the Monday Market in suicide attacks, killing dozens, and in one week last summer four women carried out bombings in northern Nigeria’s biggest city, Kano.

But the use of a child to kill — witnesses, police officials, a top hospital official in Maiduguri and local vigilantes all agreed that the bomber was very young — may be unprecedented in the insurgency.

“It’s a little girl,” said the hospital official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of his position. “The body is beyond recognition, but from the face you can see it’s a young person. A young pretty girl.”

A vigilante group has taken responsibility for much of what little security exists in Maiduguri, and on Saturday morning, before the blast, several members of the group had screened the girl with metal detectors as she entered the market, said a spokesman, Abubakar Faruq.

The girl resisted, the vigilantes noticed a bulge around her waist and the bomb went off, Mr. Faruq said. A police spokesman said 20 people were killed and 18 others critically wounded.

Several witnesses said it appeared that the girl might not have been aware of her deadly burden. Bakura Bashir, a shopper who witnessed the explosion, said: “This girl may not necessarily know she was conveying a timed bomb. The girl was torn into two halves, and half of her body was thrown across buildings by the devastating blast.”

A top federal police official in the capital, Abuja, who once worked in Maiduguri, said Saturday that the terrorist group appeared to have embarked on a new path.

“It’s something quite new, and it’s disturbing, using these young, young girls wearing hijabs,” the official said, referring to the Muslim veil.

“Now, one has to be suspicious of any lady wearing a hijab — whether it’s a young lady, or an old lady,” said the police official, who asked not to be quoted by name because of concerns about his position.

Boko Haram has carried out a spate of attacks recently in the northeast, including a devastating one in Baga, a fishing village north of Maiduguri, that killed dozens last week; an assault on the nearby city of Damaturu on Friday evening that set off a gun battle lasting more than four hours, but that was ultimately repelled by security forces; and a bombing in Potiskum on Saturday that killed two police officers.

Source: www.nytimes.com...

This is just sick. Something needs to be done with these Boko Haram scumbags.

That is just plain messed up. Someone really needs to go in and lay waste to these guys. My kids are getting close to 10 and I can't even fathom the low that someone could go to in order to justify allowing their child to do this. Sick and depraved. Makes me want to head over myself and drop the lot of them. Can't understand why the US hasn't already flattened this group and salted the ground around them.

That is just sad and pathetic. Cowards use a 10 yr old girl for their dirty-work.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
Can't understand why the US hasn't already flattened this group and salted the ground around them.

Well, unless this happened in Europe, North America or Israel, I honestly don't think the US Government would give the slightest f*** about this.
I mean, just imagine the outrage this sort of attack would have caused if this was done here. Instant invasion of Syria and Iraq to go "fight" ISIS.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
Sick and depraved. Makes me want to head over myself and drop the lot of them. Can't understand why the US hasn't already flattened this group and salted the ground around them.

Because there's nothing in it for them. The US aren't crusaders of peace and justice, unfortunately.

a reply to: daftpink
I guess greed is something our world will never be free of, no matter how hard we try.

This ten year-old didn't even know what she was getting into, it's sickening to know that terrorists were so heartless. If their children were the ones at risk, I'm sure they'd be saying the same thing, which is infuriating.

No really, this is so demented and repulsive to the nth degree! Islam itself has to fight these super creeps and it's high time they did! Do average muslims think the caliphate that Boko Haram is trying to establish is going to be fair and a joy to live under?

That poor little child. They have murdered her and used her to murder others. They truly are a scourge onto the world. Come on Islam. Do something constructive to rid the planet of this!

a reply to: Vasa Croe

Can't understand why the US hasn't already flattened this group and salted the ground around them.

Because if we did these idiots that think the world is sunshine and rainbows would say the following:

"They are only there to commit genocide and steal resources"

"Oil was discovered there that must be the only motive"

And the best one yet-

"We're slaughtering the innocent..Boko Haram are fighting for their country for their freedom! Just like the Taliban in Afghanistan!"

a reply to: aboutface

I don't think anything can be done by any Muslim Country. They're all busy looking after their throne and money. A bunch of
sell outs. These Arab states scream Islamophobia when it suites them but do absolutely nothing to counter these sort of nutcases, kidnapping children and strapping them with bombs to then kill others. I wish I could do something about this.

a reply to: Boeing777

This is a sick act!

The girl had probably been brainwashed aswell.... and probably told her that if she did it she would go to Heaven to see her Mother & Father!

Sick people!

They do it in the name of 'Allah'. This is why I think now would be a good time for all Muslims to drop the Religion!! Then, anything else done in the name of 'Allah' couldn't be blamed on them for not doing anything about their situation.

Why would you still want to be associated with a 'Religion' that does this kind of thing?

Yes, I know there's 'peaceful' this and 'peaceful' that but I think it would be for the best.

originally posted by: Boeing777
a reply to: aboutface

I don't think anything can be done by any Muslim Country. They're all busy looking after their throne and money. A bunch of
sell outs. These Arab states scream Islamophobia when it suites them but do absolutely nothing to counter these sort of nutcases, kidnapping children and strapping them with bombs to then kill others. I wish I could do something about this.

you try stopping the crime where you are from, here in Houston non terrorists Christians shoot each other daily, last year a non terrorist wore a fedex uniform and slaughtered a family, they said he was mentally ill because people of his color don't do things like this unless they are ill.

If a bomb goes off in the middle of people and pieces are every where, how do you tell which one blew themselves up especially if its just a random kid? Cops in the US can't tell the difference between a teenager or a grown man let alone a 10 year old in pieces.

a reply to: chishuppu

If you look through liveleak, you'll see that every suicide bomber will in almost all cases rip in half. Their heads are usually intact so it's easy to identify the bomber and his identity. The victims however will have limbs blown off.
I'm just a University student. Maybe If I became a Met Police commissioner then I might be able to make a change in where I live.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
My kids are getting close to 10 and I can't even fathom the low that someone could go to in order to justify allowing their child to do this.

Your mistake, and the mistake of many, is that they think people send their own children to do this. Using children as weapons isn't new, even if this particular group is only doing it for the first time.

www.hrw.org...

originally posted by: TruthxIsxInxThexMist
a reply to: Boeing777

The girl had probably been brainwashed aswell.... and probably told her that if she did it she would go to Heaven to see her Mother & Father!

Sick people!

What's more likely is that she was delivering a package, after having been kidnapped.

a reply to: TheArrow

Yeah, Possible indeed,

I don't this group 'Boko Haram ' at all.

originally posted by: Boeing777
a reply to: aboutface

I don't think anything can be done by any Muslim Country. They're all busy looking after their throne and money. A bunch of
sell outs. These Arab states scream Islamophobia when it suites them but do absolutely nothing to counter these sort of nutcases, kidnapping children and strapping them with bombs to then kill others. I wish I could do something about this.

Actually I wasn't thinking of a country but rather their learned imams who could meet with them or talk to them through the television medium or some such. Boko Haram stands for no education so the way I pictured it would be a campaign to reverse that kind of deliberate ignorance. Not easy, but look at how Malala's campaign has reached round the world.

originally posted by: Vasa Croe
That is just plain messed up. Someone really needs to go in and lay waste to these guys. My kids are getting close to 10 and I can't even fathom the low that someone could go to in order to justify allowing their child to do this. Sick and depraved. Makes me want to head over myself and drop the lot of them. Can't understand why the US hasn't already flattened this group and salted the ground around them.

I'm hearing you mate, I am English and I wish that Europe put it's neck on the line for once.

Why should the US have to lead the charge again making more enemies and criticism, we Europeans feel the same, let us show the world it's not just a US thing, we don't want your radicalization either.

“It’s a little girl,” said the hospital official. “The body is beyond recognition, but from the face you can see it’s a young person. A young pretty girl.” Several witnesses said it appeared that the girl might not have been aware of her deadly burden. “This girl may not necessarily know she was conveying a timed bomb. The girl was torn into two halves, and half of her body was thrown across buildings by the devastating blast.”

Utterly chilling, and so utterly depraved! As you read these words you cannot stop yourself from weeping with despair. Think about the mindset of the adults who strapped on the explosives and weaponised her. The report that she initially resisted the search probably indicates that she was aware of the device, but what impulse drove her to carry it? Was she threatened? Were members of her family threatened, even though the threat may not have been real, she might have believed it?

I just cannot get my head around the depravity of it...then again, I'm not made in a way to do so.

originally posted by: elysiumfire
The report that she initially resisted the search probably indicates that she was aware of the device, but what impulse drove her to carry it? Was she threatened? Were members of her family threatened, even though the threat may not have been real, she might have believed it?

It's more likely that she thought she was running drugs.

Her family was almost assuredly threatened, if she didn't watch them die before her eyes, maybe at the hands of her own brother, who was forced to rape their mother before he killed her and their father.

This is the kind of stuff they do.