Adebayor joins Turkey’s Basaksehir…See full details

Club chairman Mustafa Seral told the Anadolu news agency that Adebayor was arriving on a one and a half year contract and would make a "major contribution". PHOTO: TWITTER/Medipol Basaksehir

Togo captain and former English Premier League star Emmanuel Adebayor on Tuesday joined Turkish top flight side Medipol Basaksehir of Istanbul, surprise contenders for this year’s league title.

The club announced that the 32-year-old former Arsenal, Manchester City, Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur forward was joining on its official Instagram page, posting a picture of the player undergoing a medical.

Club chairman Mustafa Seral told the Anadolu news agency that Adebayor was arriving on a one and a half year contract and would make a “major contribution”.

Financial details have yet to be disclosed.

The player has been without a club since leaving Crystal Palace at the end of last season. But he skippered Togo at the Africa Cup of Nations in Gabon this month where the country exited at the group stage.

Adebayor, who spent most of the past decade in England, had previously hinted that he could push for a move back to the Premier League.

Formerly known as Istanbul Buyuksehir Belediyesi Spor (IBB), the club changed their name in 2014 to Basaksehir and have seen a major surge in fortunes.

They are proving a worthy rival to the traditional dominant Istanbul trio of Galatasaray, Besiktas and Fenerbahce and have led the Turkish Super Lig for much of this season.

After the latest round of games, they are now in second place, two points behind leaders Besiktas, and remain in contention for a first ever Super Lig title.

Suicide bomber ‘had baby strapped to her back’ (Read full details)

A female suicide bomber who attacked a town in northeast Nigeria earlier this month was carrying a baby at the time, the country’s main relief agency said on Tuesday.

But the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) said it was unclear whether this was a new tactic on the part of Boko Haram Islamists to allow would-be bombers to evade detection.

“From the report we got after the Madagali attack (on January 13), one of the female suicide bombers had a baby strapped to her back,” said the NEMA coordinator for Adamawa state, Saad Bello.

“However it is not clear whether it was a coincidence or a strategy they employed to avoid detection by security personnel.

“This was one isolated case and it will be premature to arrive at a definite conclusion that the use of babies in suicide attacks has become a trend.”

At least two people were killed and 15 others injured in the explosions in Madagali at a checkpoint manned by local hunters, at a military post and a bus station.

Police said four female bombers were responsible while the state government blamed Boko Haram, which has frequently targeted Madagali, including in December, when some 45 people were killed.

Boko Haram, which has been fighting to create a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria since 2009, began using suicide bombers in mid-2014.

Women and girls, some reportedly aged 10 and younger, have been used to target checkpoints, bus stations, mosques, churches, schools and markets to inflict maximum civilian casualties.

Last week, the group’s leader Abubakar Shekau admitted for the first time they had used women in the conflict.

Experts studying suicide bombings have said children are likely to be unaware they are being used as human bombs but that women using children and babies as cover for suicide attacks was rare.

In 2008, US investigators suggested a blast blamed on Al-Qaeda which killed at least 35 at a wedding reception north of Baghdad may have been carried out by a bomber pretending to be pregnant.

Two years earlier in Sri Lanka, another woman believed to be feigning pregnancy carried out a suicide bomb attack that killed 11 and wounded the country’s army chief. Tamil Tiger separatists were blamed.

Suicide bomber ‘had baby strapped to her back’