3 female suicide bombers thwarted, Nigeria’s military says

BAUCHI, Nigeria – Nigerian soldiers thwarted an attack Tuesday by three female suicide bombers from the Boko Haram extremist group, fatally shooting two as they tried to detonate their explosives near people who have fled their homes because of fighting, the military said.

Two civilians were injured in the attack early Tuesday on the outskirts of Monguno town in northeast Nigeria, where Boko Haram is active, army Col. Sani Kukasheka Usman said in a statement.

Some of the bombers’ explosives detonated even though they had been shot, while the third bomber blew herself up in a different area where no one was harmed, he said.

In other violence, the Nigerian military said it killed four suspected Boko Haram members in an ambush early Tuesday in the Kukawa area of the country’s northeast.

Separately, in the south of the country, suspected militants from the Niger Delta Avengers group late Monday blew up two pipelines belonging to the state oil company and U.S.-based company Chevron, authorities said.

The militants in the southern Niger Delta have already slashed oil production in Nigeria with similar attacks, saying that they deserve a greater share of the wealth from oil. They have also called for a referendum on breaking up the Nigerian federation.

All Nigeria’s oil production, which provides 70 per cent of the federal government’s revenue, is in the Niger Delta and offshore of the southern region. The industry has massively polluted the region and destroyed the livelihoods of communities that rely on fishing and agriculture.