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Hero dog stops suicide bomber blowing up a wedding

Nigerian soldiers, with sniffer dogs, have been fighting Boko Haram for more than seven years
Nigerian soldiers, with sniffer dogs, have been fighting Boko Haram for more than seven years

A dog is being hailed a hero after preventing a suicide bomber from attacking a wedding.

It attacked the teenage bomber forcing her to detonate her devices – killing herself and the dog but none of the intended targets.

The girl, who is believed to have been sent by the Boko Haram militant group, had been making her way to the wedding party in the Nigerian village of Belbelo on Sunday morning when the dog went for her, Sky News reports.

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“This forced the suspect to detonate her explosive, while battling to wriggle herself from the claws and jaws of the dog,” police spokesman Victor Isuku said.

“The dog stopped the teenage suicide bomber from detonating her strapped improvised explosive devices on the wedding crowd of people.”

No guests were even injured in the explosion. The dog is believed to have belonged to one of the wedding guests.

Mr Isuku said the attempted bombing happened just a few hours after three other suicide bombings at two locations not far from the wedding ceremony, which was taking place near the north-eastern city of Maiduguri.

Islamist group Boko Haram is known for using women or children to carry out such assaults.

In December, two girls, thought to be aged seven or eight, were blamed for a double suicide bombing in Maiduguri that killed one person and injured 17.

The group wants to impose hardline Islamic rule over the country’s mainly Muslim north. They have abducted thousands of women and girls in their seven-year reign of terror, in which almost 20,000 have lost their lives.

Nigeria president Muhammadu Buhari insisted that the uprising had been “technically defeated”.

However, there are still suicide attacks as well of cases of looting and indiscriminate killing.