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The Nigerian Army on Sunday said it foiled a plan by the Boko Haram sect to carry out massive suicide bomb attacks on Zaria, Kaduna and Suleja.
The army spoke in reaction to the killing of two suspected Boko Haram operatives in Gaskiya Layout of Tukur-Tukur, Zaria on Sunday morning by a joint team of State Security Service agents and soldiers.
The National Emergency Management Agency said two suspected extremists were killed while the injured were rushed to hospital.
Several people, including a woman, were arrested during the operation and the troops seized and destroyed a building which was heavily loaded with explosives, online medium, Saharareporters reports.
A statement signed by the Army Public Relations Officer, Cap. Ibrahim Abdullahi, said the gunfight took place in the early hours of Sunday when the militants engaged the joint team in a fierce gun battle in Gaskiya Layout.
Abdullahi said the engagement followed a tip-off that Boko Haram was planning a major suicide mission in Zaria, Kaduna and Suleija to coincide with Monday’s Independence Day celebrations.
A joint operation was then launched on a residential building in Gaskiya Layout to flush out the extremists.
The statement did not say whether any innocent people were killed, or whether the militants were the only residents of the building.
Abdullahi said the IEDs were intended for the various operations the sect was to carry out, and to inflict maximum casualty on army troops.
“As a result, a controlled detonation was carried out by Army Engineers so as to save other law abiding residents of the area and to stop further planning and execution of the nefarious, destructive, criminal and deadly activities of the sect,” the statement said.
Investigations will determine the extent of the involvement of the individuals who were arrested during the operation.
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission on Sunday advised persons travelling out of Nigeria not to exceed the statutory $10,000 foreign exchange limit.
EFCC Secretary, Mr. Emmanuel Akomaye, who gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja, said any traveller carrying any amount above the limit should be prepared to declare it to Customs.
Akomaye blamed Nigeria’s fraud, terrorism, money laundering and drug vulnerability on its cash-based economy and commended the National Assemby for showing commitment to strengthening Nigeria’s anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism laws.
The commission on Thursday arrested a 24 year-old Nigerian, Abubakar Tijani Sheriff, for allegedly attempting to travel out with the sum of $7 million (N1,120,000 billion).
He was arrested at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos as he was trying to travel to Dubai aboard a United Arab Emirates flight.
After his arrest, he said that he had a total sum of $4.5million.
But when he was thouroughly searched, he was found to have $7,049,444 on him.
He later confessed that he was a courier for 20 individuals who hired him to take the money for them to Dubai.
Authorities said they were working on the theory that he was a money laundering courier.
He has reportedly named 20 individuals who sent him on the errand.
A nine-year-old boy was killed and three other children wounded when a hand grenade was thrown into a Sunday school session in a church in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, police and medical staff said.
Kenya has suffered a series of grenade attacks since it sent troops across the border into Somalia last October in pursuit of Islamist al Shabaab militants who it blamed for kidnapping its security personnel and Western tourists.
The attack on the church came days after Kenyan troops launched a surprise offensive on the southern Somali port of Kismayu, the last stronghold of the al Shabaab, forcing the rebels to flee, Reuters reports.
Police said attackers threw the grenade into the Sunday school service in St. Polycarp’s church on Nairobi’s Juja Road.
The grenade exploded, spraying the children with shrapnel and fatally injuring the boy.
“We suspect this blast might have been carried out by sympathisers of al Shabaab,” said deputy police spokesman Charles Owino.
“These are the kicks of a dying horse since, of late, Kenyan police have arrested several suspects in connection with grenades,” he added.
Masked assailants launched simultaneous gun and grenade raids on two churches in the northern town of Garissa in July, killing at least 17 people.
