An officer of the Nigerian Air Force was feared killed on August 26 by two suspected Boko Haram suicide bombers who launched an attack on a military checkpoint in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital. According to security sources, a young girl who was with the soldiers at the checkpoint was lucky to survive the attack, even as she is currently being attended to by medics at a Maiduguri hospital. Witnesses said the attack happened at about 11pm at the military checkpoint usually mounted at night at the roundabout that leads to the airport at the entrance of Maiduguri along the Kano- Maiduguri highway. A commander of the Civilian-JTF, who did not want to be named, said the suicide bombers really planned the attack on the soldiers and other security operatives at the Airport Junction by deciding to show up near the checkpoint at that late hour of the night. “Last night, when the soldiers on security checkpoint at the roundabout that leads to the airport saw two men moving from the opposite direction of the airport, they got suspicious and invited them to approach them. They asked the two men to raise their hands, and one of them complied but the other didn’t. As they got closer to the soldiers, the suspected Boko Haram suicide bombers detonated their explosives which killed them both and a Flight Lieutenant, instantly. The blast was the first in Maiduguri city since 31st July when a tricycle-riding suicide bomber killed at least eight early rising traders at a popular market.
