JOS, Nigeria — The Nigerian military’s discovery of a Muslim terrorist base full of ammunition and explosives in Jos on May 19 refutes Islamist claims that Christians have been bombing their own churches, a local pastor said.
An intensive three-day search by Nigeria’s Special Military Task Force found four Improvised Explosive Devices, along with 19 other explosive devices.
In northern Nigeria’s Kano state, Nigerian forces killed a suspected Islamist militant in a raid May 1 following Boko Haram’s April 29 attack on a worship service at Bayero University, where 19 people reportedly died from a bomb blast and gunfire. Two of those killed in the attacks were professors.
A Catholic church held a memorial service May 11 for the 10 Catholics slain at the university. Pastor Emefiena Ezeani, who had just finished conducting mass at his parish when he heard about the attack, said too many people are refusing to acknowledge that churches are as much primary targets of Boko Haram as police, government and media facilities are.
“Has Boko Haram, thanks to their being truthful, not made it unequivocally clear that their ultimate intention is to Islamize the whole of Nigeria? I am worried by the disturbing and deafening silence,” he said. In an attack in Maiduguri, in the northeastern state of Borno, that authorities said was related to the Kano assault as it took place on the same day (April 29), suspected Boko Haram militants reportedly charged into a Church of Christ in Nigeria service and began firing as the congregation was about to take communion.
Witnesses reportedly said that when congregation members who escaped later returned, they found the pastor dead along with four other slain worshipers.
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