Abuja – A female suicide bomber killed herself and a soldier outside an army barracks in Nigeria’s north-eastern city of Gombe on Sunday, the military said, as local leaders reported the death count from a string of earlier militant attacks had reached 110.<\/p>\n
No one claimed responsibility for the blast or last week’s assaults but Islamist group Boko Haram has set off bombs and killed thousands in its five-year-old bid to carve out an Islamist state in the region.<\/p>\n
Soldiers stopped the woman as she tried to get into the barracks with explosives hidden under her robes, defence headquarters said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The device went off, killing her and a soldier searching her, it added. “I heard a loud sound and then black smoke covering the place … We saw soldiers moving bodies,” Gombe trader Bello Kasuwankatako told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Witnesses had earlier said between three and five people died.<\/p>\n
Boko Haram \u2013 which dominated world headlines by kidnapping more than 200 schoolgirls in April \u2013 has fought back against an army offensive, piling political pressure on President Goodluck Jonathan and the military to end the carnage.<\/p>\n
Leaders from Gombe’s neighbouring state of Borno told journalists on Sunday they had now buried 110 bodies from attacks on nine villages early last week – giving the first detailed breakdown on the casualties…<\/p>\n