Boko Haram claims responsibility for Nigerian suicide bombing

The Islamist militant group Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for Friday’s suicide bombing that killed at least 21 people and injured dozens of others near Kano, Nigeria’s second largest city.
A message written in Arabic on a social media forum on Saturday, claiming to be from Boko Haram, identified the bomber, who targeted a procession of hundreds of Shiite Muslims in the northern city, as Abu Suleiman Al-Ansari, and said he had died a martyr.
The message praised the “glorious attack” and said actions “will continue against Shiite polytheists until we purify the earth of their contamination.” Polytheism refers to the worship of multiple gods.
Boko Haram has stepped up suicide attacks across northern Nigeria since troops retook most of the territory they held in 2014, and intensified the offensive to end a six-year-old insurgency.
A second bomber was captured during Friday’s attack before he could detonate an explosive belt, said Muhammad Ture, leader of Kano’s Shiite Muslims.
The attack followed another on Nov. 18, in which two women blew themselves up in Kano’s mobile phone market, killing more than a dozen people. Mustapha Muhammad, Bloomberg