A UAE newspaper has said that the bombing during morning prayers at a mosque in the southern Nigerian city of Mobi, which killed or injured dozens of innocent people, is a heinous act that highlights the need for the world to unite more sternly against the scourge of terrorism.

"The fact that a teenage suicide bomber detonated his explosives while mingling among the worshippers indicates the ugly face of terrorist groups like Boko Haram that have been increasingly using teenagers or young women as bombers, many of whom themselves are victims of abduction," said The Gulf Today in an editorial on Thursday.

Incidentally, Tuesday’s attack was the biggest since two schoolgirl suicide bombers killed 56 people and wounded dozens more at a market in Adamawa last December.

It is also the first attack on Mobi since armed forces recaptured the town from Boko Haram in 2014. Time and again terrorists engage in such monstrous actions with the wrong notion that they can strangle social harmony and break the unity of peace-loving people around the world. They are doomed to fail. The world remains more united now than ever before against the bane of terrorism.

Nigeria’s military has managed in recent months to flush out Boko Haram from its forest stronghold, but the extremist group still remains alive and active and that is a cause for concern. The group continues to attack civilian and military targets.

Tuesday’s bombing brings the number killed in 2017 to at least 278, according to calculations by Reuters news agency.

Terming the attack "very cruel", President Muhammadu Buhari, who came to power in 2015 pledging to end Boko Haram’s eight-year insurgency, has vowed stern action. It is imperative that those responsible for the barbaric attack be swiftly brought to justice.

"The rest of the world should also extend all possible help to Nigeria in its fight against terrorism and violent extremism," concluded the Sharjah-based daily.