At least 54 people killed in bomb blasts in Nigeria's Maiduguri
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, Sept 21 (Reuters) - At least 54 people were killed and 90 wounded in a multiple bomb attack in the northeastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri in Borno state on Sunday evening, a police spokesman said on Monday.
The city has been free of attack for about a month. It was last hit by a bomb at the end of July and there was a skirmish with suspected Boko Haram militants on the outskirts in mid-August.
"A suspected Boko Haram suicide bomber detonated IEDs (improvised explosive devices) at a mosque in Ajilari and some insurgents also threw IEDs at a viewing centre. Total casualty figure is now 54," Victor Isuku, a police spokesman in Maiduguri, said.
A Nigerian army spokesman said on Sunday that three bombs had gone off.
There was still no claim for the attack but it bore the hallmarks of Islamist jihadi group Boko Haram that has been trying to carve out a state in the country's northeast since 2009.
Maiduguri is the birthplace of the insurgency that has killed thousands and displaced 2.1 million people.
After President Muhammadu Buhari's inauguration, attacks rose across northern Nigeria and Maiduguri was hit on a near weekly basis.
A new offensive launched by the Nigerian army to clear Boko Haram out of some more towns over the last month saw a sharp drop in the frequency of attacks in Borno, the worst affected by the insurrection, and neighbouring states.
http://af.reuters.com/article/nigeriaNe ... N720150921
GOP candidate Carson: Muslim shouldn't be elected president
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson says Islam is antithetical to the Constitution, and he doesn't believe that a Muslim should be elected president.
Carson, a devout Christian, says a president's faith should matter to voters if it runs counter to the values and principles of America.
Responding to a question during an interview broadcast Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," he described the Islamic faith as inconsistent with the Constitution.
"I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation," Carson said. "I absolutely would not agree with that."
He did not specify in what way Islam ran counter to constitutional principles.
Carson's comments drew strong criticism from the country's largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
...
Carson's comments came amid lingering fallout over Republican Donald Trump's refusal last week to take issue with a man during a campaign event who wrongly called President Barack Obama a Muslim and said Muslims are "a problem in this country."
Also speaking on NBC on Sunday, Trump said that a Muslim in the White House is "something that could happen... Some people have said it already happened, frankly."
http://news.yahoo.com/gop-candidate-car ... ction.html#
Ben Carson won’t back down from comments about Muslims
Ben Carson is doubling down on his controversial belief that a Muslim should not be elected president, telling the Hill newspaper that the commander in chief should be “sworn in on a stack of Bibles, not a Koran.”
The Republican hopeful sparked a firestorm on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday when he was asked if a president’s faith should matter in the wake of Donald Trump’s refusal to correct a supporter who falsely asserted President Barack Obama is Muslim.
Carson said it would matter because he does not believe Islam is consistent with the U.S. Constitution.
...
“I do not believe Sharia is consistent with the Constitution of this country,” Carson said. “Muslims feel that their religion is very much a part of your public life and what you do as a public official, and that’s inconsistent with our principles and our Constitution.”
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/ben-cars ... 84511.html
Why Ben Carson won't apologize for anti-Muslim comments
GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson is standing by his statement that he would not support a Muslim for president, despite the controversy the statement has created.
Ben Carson won’t apologize for saying he “absolutely would not” support a Muslim for president. He’s doubling down on this opinion despite the controversy it’s created.
On Sunday, a spokesman for Dr. Carson’s presidential campaign said that Carson does not believe individual Muslims should be barred from running for the White House. But the retired neurosurgeon would not vote for a Muslim, and does not believe others should.
“He has great respect for the Muslim community, but there is a huge gulf between the faith and practice of the Muslim faith, and our Constitution and American values,” Carson spokesman Doug Watts told NBC News.
...
t’s true that substantial numbers of US voters agree with Carson. In a 2015 Gallup poll, 38 percent of respondents said that they would not vote for an otherwise well-qualified Muslim presidential candidate. The comparable figure for Republicans only was 55 percent, a majority.
But the flip side of this is that a majority of the nation – 60 percent – answered “yes” to the vote-for-a-Muslim question. Thus Republicans intent on winning in 2016 are face-palming over the fact that Carson has been drawn into a debate that won’t help the party in the United States at large, and could have been easily avoided
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/D ... m-comments