World
More than 100 people died in an attack on a Nigerian mosque on Friday, local government and hospital officials say. The BBC writes:
The president of Nigeria has vowed "to leave no stone unturned" in tracking down the perpetrators of the gun and bomb attack during Friday's prayers in the northern city of Kano. Goodluck Jonathan urged the nation "to confront the common enemy".
No-one has so far claimed the attack but officials say it bears the hallmarks of Boko Haram militant group. Kano's Central Mosque, where the attack took place, is where the influential Muslim leader, the emir of Kano, usually leads prayers.
Emir Muhammed Sanusi had recently called for people to arm themselves against Boko Haram, and there have been suggestions that the attack was in response to that call. However, on Saturday the emir dismissed the claims, saying it must have taken at least two months to plan the attack.
He made the comments during a visit to the mosque. Boko Haram, a Sunni Islamist group, has been waging an insurgency in Nigeria since 2009 and has killed more than 2,000 people this year, human rights groups say.
Nigeria emerged 4th on the 2013 Global Terrorism Index. In plain language, Nigeria was the 4th worst affected country with regard to incidents of terrorism, last year. The Sun reports:
In the global study by the London-based Institute for Economics and Peace, it was little surprise that Nigeria ranked behind Afghanistan and Pakistan, that came first and second respectively, while Iraq, which had 2,492 terrorist attacks that killed 6,300 people, came third.
Syria, now in the throes of a devastating civil war, was ranked 15th after Nigeria. It was equally understandable that the number of people killed in terrorism attacks rose 60 per cent in 2013 to over 18,000.
That figure is expected to go even higher in 2014 due to the obvious escalation of terrorism in the Middle East and Nigeria. The Institute stated that there were 303 terrorist attacks in Nigeria in 2013 with 1,826 fatalities and 457 injured, “figures bound to be eclipsed judging by the ferocity of 2014 attacks by Boko Haram.”
The economic cost of terrorism in Nigeria was horrendous: $28.48 billion. And, it thus followed that Nigeria sank to the bottom rungs of the Global Peace Index, ranking 151 out of 162 nations.
