Boko Haram jihadists in Nigeria have reportedly resorted to using senior men pretending to be feeble as suicide bombers, the country’s military said this week, which describes the move as a possible change in tactics in carrying out attacks on soft targets.
“Aside [from] using women and children, the terrorists are now engaging the aged in suicide bombing as witnessed in this recent incident,” Nigerian Army Col. Onyema Nwachukwu, a spokesman for the Nigerian military, declared in a statement.
The colonel reportedly cautioned members of the public not to trust “dirty and scraggy looking individuals,” adding, according to the Premium Times:
They [Boko Haram] have also been detected to now appear clean and well dressed to look unsuspicious and enable them [to] gain access to targets marked for suicide attacks. Some of the terrorists have also been found to now conceal their suicide vests by wearing it on the thigh rather than the waist to appear less bulky and evade detection when searched.
In view of these developments, members of the public are please urged to be vigilant and discerning as they go about their normal daily routines and activities.
Until an attack this week, Boko Haram had increasingly been using women and teenagers, particularly young girls, to carry out suicide attacks in Nigeria in recent months.
The use of a senior man to carry out a suicide bombing on Tuesday suggests that Boko Haram is altering its tactics, the Nigerian colonel noted.
Premium Times reports:
The Nigerian military says the Tuesday attack that claimed the lives of at least three operatives of the Civilian-JTF in Konduga town of Borno State was possible because Boko Haram used an aged man who disguised as a weak and feeble traveler.
The spokesman of the military operation in the North-east, Operation Lafiya Dole, Onyema Nwachukwu, said members of the Civilian-JTF on a stop and search duty in Konduga were deceived by the old man whom they allowed to [an] inch too close to their post for a check of the content of the bag he was carrying.
Tuesday’s attack came soon after the Nigerian military rescued an elderly man during an exchange of fire with Boko Haram in the jihadist group’s birthplace of Borno state.
The Nigerian military reportedly claims it is engaged in an operation that “will put an end to the activities of Boko Haram insurgency in the Lake Chad region,” All Africa reports.
Col. Nwachukwu confirmed that the military is “conducting operations to clear remnants of Boko Haram insurgents in the Lake Chad Islands and surrounding villages of northern Borno.”
The Nigerian government has falsely claimed on various occasions to have defeated Boko Haram.