N’DJAMENA - A suicide bomber dressed as a woman killed around 10 people at a market in the capital of Chad on Saturday, police said, in the latest attack to hit the country on the frontline in the fight against Boko Haram Islamists. The bomber, wearing a full-face Islamic veil, blew himself up at the entrance to a market in N’Djamena around 8:45 am (0745 GMT), a police official told AFP, adding about 10 people were killed and several injured. An AFP reporter at the scene counted nine bodies. At first police identified the killer as a woman but later police director general Taher Erda confirmed that the attacker was a man.
The head of the presumed bomber was found near the explosion site and shown to journalists. A police source said that the bomber had arrived disguised in a burqa which a police officer asked him to remove. “It was then that he detonated his explosives belt,” the source added.
Chad banned full-face Islamic veils after twin suicide bombings in mid-June killed 33 people and wounded more than 100 in the capital. The authorities have blamed the attack on Boko Haram, the Nigerian jihadist group that has carried out multiple suicide bombings inside Nigeria, sometimes by women who hid explosives under modest outer garments. Chad’s army has spearheaded a regional military effort to fight Boko Haram as the militant sect extended activities beyond Nigeria’s northeastern borders.