10-Year-Old Suicide Bomber in Nigeria

Boko Haram, the Nigerian Islamist terrorist group, has apparently taken to using small children to carry out its suicide bombings. In a crowded market in northern Nigeria, a 10-year-old girl exploded a suicide bomb concealed under her veil, killing as many as 20 people and sowing panic and fear in the area. Others were wounded at the Monday Market in Maiduguri, a city at the core of the Boko Haram insurgency, and the tactic represents a new low in the group's methods. The child may be the youngest suicide bomber ever, The New York Times reported. “It’s a little girl,” a hospital official said. “The body is beyond recognition, but from the face you can see it’s a young person. A young pretty girl.” The Islamist group has carried out dozens of attacks in recent weeks, with unconfirmed reports that it has razed more than a dozen villages and killed perhaps up to 2,000.