Alwaght- Over 20 Shiite Muslims have been killed in a terrorist bomb attack targeting an annual religious procession in the northern Nigerian state of Kano.
During the Friday incident, a suicide bomber targeted Shiite Muslims during Arbaeen Symbolic Trek along Kano- Zaria road. The annual procession is organized by the Islamic Movement of Nigeria led by prominent Islamic scholar Sheikh Ibrahim al-Zakzaky.
“We lost 21 people and several others have been injured,” said Muhammad Turi from the Islamic Movement.
Sign of the incidence was first reported when a suspected bomber was arrested with a suicide bomb belt tied to his waist in Kura town.
Upon interrogation, the bomber confessed two of them were sent from Mubi to Sambisa and finally Gwammaja Quarters in Kano for a suicide mission to kill Shiites during the Arbaeen trek.
While manhunt for the second bomber on the loose was going on, the bomber detonated the bomb among the trekkers.
Scores of trekkers including children were killed and among the dead was the bomber whose body was dismembered in two pieces. Sheikh Turi ordered evacuation of the dead and injured to ease traffic congestion. The symbolic trek has since continued as normal.
The deadly attack happened days before Shiites in Nigeria and other parts of the world commemorate Arbaeen, the 40th day since the anniversary of the martyrdom of the grandson of Prophet Muhammad PBUH, Imam Hussein AS, and his devout followers in the Battle of Karbala over 1,300 years ago.
On November 3, 2014 at least 32 people were killed and over 100 others wounded when a large explosion ripped through a procession of Shiite worshippers mourning the martyrdom anniversary of Imam Hussein (PBUH) in the Potiskum area in Nigeria’s northeastern state of Yobe.
In July 2014, 27 demonstrators, including the sons of the leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, were gunned down during an anti-Israeli rally held to mark International Quds Day in the ancient city of Zaria in the northern Nigerian state of Kaduna.
Among those killed was 18-year-old Syed Mahmud Ibrahim Zakzaky, a son of Sheikh Ibrahim al-Zakzaky, the leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, which had called for the rally. Sheikh Zakzaky is a fierce critic the Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group.