Boko Haram blamed for Nigeria explosion that killed 32 and injured 80

Reporting from YOLA, Nigeria —  A nighttime suicide bombing killed 32 people and wounded 80 on Tuesday at a truck stop in northeastern Nigeria, an emergency official said. Boko Haram extremists were blamed.

The blast in Yola breaks a three-week hiatus in bombings after a string of suicide attacks culminated in explosions in mosques in two northeastern cities that killed 42 people and wounded more than 100 on Oct. 23.

One of the mosques attacked was in Yola, capital of Adamawa state, where the insurgents struck again. It was the third suicide bombing in as many months in a city overflowing with some of the 2.3 million people driven from their homes by the Islamists.

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The wounded were evacuated to hospitals, coordinator Sa’ad Bello of the National Emergency Management Agency told the AP.

Most victims were vendors and passersby, said Deputy Superintendent Othman Abubakar, the police spokesman for Adamawa state.

Nigeria’s military has reported foiling several suicide bombers recently, and killing and capturing insurgents as it destroys Boko Haram camps in air raids and ground attacks.

Analysts say Nigeria’s military is too thin to hold ground and as it takes one area, the extremists slip into another in the vast spaces dotted by forests in the northeast.

About 20,000 people have been killed in the 6-year-old Boko Haram uprising, which has spread to neighboring countries.

Forces from Chad and Nigeria drove Boko Haram out of a self-proclaimed Islamic caliphate this year, as former President Goodluck Jonathan faced elections. Jonathan lost, in part because of his failure to curb the insurgency.

Former military dictator Muhammadu Buhari was elected and has promised to break the back of the insurgency by year’s end, but Boko Haram persists with deadly raids on remote villages and urban suicide bombings that have killed more than 2,000 people this year.

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