Photo: Collected

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, Dec 25, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - Nigeria police said Thursday 
that they suspected a suicide bomber was behind the blast that killed several 
worshippers in a mosque on Christmas eve in the country's northeastern Borno 
state.

A police spokesman put the death toll at five, with 35 wounded. A witness on 
Wednesday told AFP that eight people were killed.

The bomb went off inside the crowded Al-Adum Juma'at Mosque at Gamboru market 
in the capital city of Maiduguri, as Muslim faithful gathered for evening 
prayers around 6:00 pm (1700 GMT), according to witnesses and the police.

"An unknown individual, whom we suspect to be a member of a terrorist group, 
entered inside the mosque, and while prayer was ongoing, we recorded an 
explosion," police spokesman Nahum Daso told journalists.

Daso said in a statement late on Wednesday that the "incident may have been a 
suicide bombing, based on the recovery of fragments of a suspected suicide 
vest and witness statements."

Police officials have been deployed to markets, worship centres and other 
public places in the wake of the blast.

Nigeria has been battling a jihadist insurgency since 2009 by jihadist groups 
Boko Haram and an offshoot, Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), in a 
conflict that has killed at least 40,000 and displaced around two million 
from their homes in the northeast, according to the UN.

Although the conflict has been largely limited to the northeastern region, 
jihadist attacks have been recorded in other parts of the west African 
nation.

Maiduguri itself -- once the scene of nightly gun battles and bombings -- has 
been calm in recent years, with the last major attack recorded in 2021.