EIGHT suspected Islamists were arrested in northern city of Kano on Thursday after police said they threw an improvised bomb at a police patrol vehicle but missed.
The suspects, believed to be from the Islamist sect Boko Haram, followed the police vehicle in a taxi in the city before hurling explosives out of the window, but missed their target, police spokesman Magaji Musa Majiya said in a statement.
“The police officers swiftly disembarked, cordoned off the area and arrested the eight occupants,” he said. “No injury was sustained during the attack.”
Boko Haram continues to be a security threat to Nigeria.
At least 2,800 people have died in since the sect launched an uprising against the government in 2009, allegedly out of a bid to impose Sharia law on Nigeria, targeting security forces and their installations, as well as politicians and Christians worshippers.
Unlike their hotbed of Maiduguri in far north-east, Kano has been relatively peaceful in the latter half of this year, although it was scene of the single deadliest attack of the bloodthirsty group last January, in a coordinated strike on several police stations in which about 186 people were killed, of whom many were civilians.