Suicide bomb attack on Nigeria checkpoint kills eight

A suicide car bomber attacked a military checkpoint in Nigeria’s northeastern city of Damaturu on Sunday, killing six soldiers and two civilians, police said.Suspicion is likely to fall on Islamist sect Boko Haram, which is waging a bloody insurgency against President Goodluck Jonathan’s government across the north.The sect is seeking to carve out an Islamic state in Africa’s top energy producer and most populous country, which is split roughly evenly between Christians and Muslims.?“The lone suicide bomber detonated the bomb before the car he was in could be stopped, killing the six soldiers and one civilian,” Patrick Egbuniwe, the police commissioner for Yobe State, told Reuters by telephone.“Another civilian died of his wounds in hospital shortly after,” he added, saying that nine soldiers were in hospital receiving treatment for their wounds.There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in Damaturu’s Shagari housing estate.Labelled a foreign terrorist organisation by the United States, Boko Haram has been behind almost daily shootings and bombings in the volatile northeast.Witness Abdullahi Sabo said the whole neighbourhood shook when the Damaturu bomb exploded.“The car blew up outside the front of my shop, the explosion was deadly,” he said. “After the dust settled, many security operatives were rushed to the hospital.”