{Female suicide bombers in Nigeria are now carrying babies to avoid detection in their attacks, authorities warn.}<\/p>\n
An attack in the town of Madagali on 13 January saw two women detonate their devices, killing themselves, two babies, and four others.<\/p>\n
They had passed a vigilante checkpoint, mistaken for civilians because they were carrying infants.<\/p>\n
Female attackers have been seen before, but officials said the use of babies could signal a “dangerous” trend.<\/p>\n
The insurgent group Boko Haram is widely suspected of having carried out the attack.
\nFour women attacked Madagali located in Adamawa State, which was recaptured from Boko Haram in 2015.<\/p>\n
Two were stopped at a security checkpoint, and detonated their devices, officials said.<\/p>\n
The two women carrying infants, however, were not stopped, and exploded their own devices past the security point.<\/p>\n
Boko Haram is known for using women, including young girls, as suicide bombers.
\nThe Nigerian government has been fighting the group in a major counter-offensive, recapturing much of their former territory.<\/p>\n
But the insurgents have ramped up their suicide bombings in response.<\/p>\n
In early December, two female suicide attackers killed at least 45 people in the same town, after they detonated their devices in a busy market.<\/p>\n
A similar attack killed 25 people a year earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Female suicide bombers in Nigeria are now carrying babies to avoid detection in their attacks, authorities warn.} An attack in the town of Madagali on 13 January saw two women detonate their devices, killing themselves, two babies, and four others. They had passed a vigilante checkpoint, mistaken for civilians because they were carrying infants. Female […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-32043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32043\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32043"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=32043"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=32043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}