[An Nahar] At least 120 people were killed and 270 others maimed on Friday when two jacket wallahs blew themselves up and gunnies opened fire during weekly prayers at the mosque of one of Nigeria's top Islamic leaders.The attack at the Grand Mosque in Kano, the biggest city in the mainly Moslem north of the country, came just as Friday prayers had started.
The mosque is attached to the palace of the Emir of Kano Muhammad Sanusi II, Nigeria's second most senior Moslem holy man, who last week urged civilians to take up arms against Boko Haram
... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality...
The blasts came after a kaboom was foiled against a mosque in the northeastern city of Maiduguri earlier on Friday, five days after two female suicide bombers killed over 45 people in the city.
National police front man Emmanuel Ojukwu told AFP that the bombers blew themselves up in quick succession then "gunnies opened fire on those who were trying to escape".
Ojukwu said he did not know whether the suicide bombers were male or female, after a spate of attacks by women in recent months, and did not give an exact figure on the number of gunnies.
But he said an angry mob killed four of the shooters in the chaotic aftermath. Witnesses in the city said they were set on fire.
An AFP news hound at the Murtala Mohammed Specialist Hospital morgue counted 92 bodies, most of them men and boys with blast injuries and severe burns.
As night fell, hundreds of people were desperately trying to use the lights on their mobile phones to identify loved ones.
But a senior rescue official said later that there were at least 120 dead and 270 maimed. Emergency workers were still trying to visit all hospitals, he added.
The Emir of Kano last week told worshipers at the same mosque that northerners should take up arms against Boko Haram, which has been fighting for a hardline Islamic state since 2009.
He also cast doubt on Nigerian troops' ability to protect civilians and end the insurgency, in rare public comments by a holy man on political and military affairs.
The emir, who is currently thought to be out of the country, is a hugely influential figure in Nigeria, which is home to more than 80 million Moslems, most of whom live in the north.
Officially the emir is the country's number two holy man, behind the Sultan of Sokoto, and any attack could inflame tensions in Nigeria's second city, which is an ancient seat of Islamic learning.
Sanusi was named emir earlier this year and is a prominent figure in his own right, having previously served as the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
During his time in charge of the CBN, he spoke out against massive government fraud and was suspended from his post in February just as his term of office was drawing to a close.