No fewer than 37 persons have been confirmed dead and 23 others injured in an explosion at a military checkpoint in Biu town, Southern Borno State on Tuesday.
Among those killed in the explosion were travellers and children hawking wares.
An operative of the local youth vigilante, a.k.a. Civilian-JTF, said a bus that exploded was exactly the type that a suicide bomber used to kill seven traders in the town’s market five days back.
It was learnt that a Boko Haram member pretending to be a harmless traveller had a grenade in his hand.
The blast from the grenade caused two more explosions in the car filled with armed Boko Haram terrorists, killing all of them.
A Civilian-JTF operative, Muhammed Miringa, disclosed that: “It was at the checkpoint; a bus filled with explosives and about 10 passengers came to the checkpoint at the outskirts of Biu. The normal tradition is for passengers to come down, raise their hands and walk through the checkpoint with the soldiers watching.
“But when this particular bus arrived, a passenger came down from the front seat and raised his hands as others were doing when passing through the checkpoint, but a smart Civilian-JTF operative had spotted that the man had a grenade in his hand and was trying to pull out the safety pin. The Civilian-JTF, who had a double-barrel rifle with him quickly shot him in the head. The Boko Haram member fell back towards the bus and the grenade went off and caused the car and other passengers inside to blow up. Some other explosives in the car, too, exploded as well.
“Some other members of the Boko Haram who were also in a vehicle behind began to shoot and the driver of that car managed to reverse and tried to escape with other terrorists, but the soldiers continued to engage them”.
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