Nigerian Teenager Says Rebels Forced Her Into Suicide Attack

A 14-year-old girl who was arrested this month with explosives strapped to her body said Wednesday that her parents had offered her as a volunteer to participate in a suicide attack. The girl, who was identified as
Zahra’u Babangida, was arrested on December 10 in Kano, the largest city in Nigeria’s mostly Muslim north, after two other girls exploded their hidden bombs in a market, killing 10 people. She said that her mother and father had taken her to a Boko Haram hide-out in a forest in Kano State, where she said she was told by a militant leader that she would go to heaven if she participated in the attack on the market. She insisted she could not take part, she said. But faced with a death threat, Zahra’u told reporters that she pretended to participate; when she and the other girls reached the market, she refused to set off her explosives. She said she was injured when one of the other girls detonated her bomb. Her account could not be independently verified