A radical Islamist sect said on Tuesday it was behind bombings in central Nigeria and attacks on churches in the northeast of the country that led to the deaths of at least 86 people.
The police said on Tuesday that 80 people were killed on Friday in bomb attacks and clashes two days later between Muslim and Christian youths in central Nigeria, while more than 100 are wounded in hospitals.
“We have recovered 80 dead bodies so far in Jos,” Daniel Gambo, an official at the Nigerian emergency management agency, said late on Monday.
In a separate incident, six people were killed when gasoline bombs were thrown late on Friday at churches in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, in Borno.
“O Nations of the World, be assured that the attacks in Suldaniyya [Jos] and Borno on the eve of Christmas were carried out by us Jama’atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda’Awatu Wal Jihad, under the leadership of Abu Muhammad, Abubakar bin Muhammad Shekau,” a statement said on the group’s Web site.
The radical Islamic group Boko Haram has previously used the name Jama’atu Ahlus-Sunnah Lidda’Awatu Wal Jihad.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has pledged to hunt down those responsible for the bombings, but the government has not said who it believes was behind the attacks.
A government spokesman was not immediately available to comment on the claim.
Boko Haram, which wants Islamic Shariah law more widely applied across Nigeria, staged an uprising in Maiduguri last year, which led to clashes with security forces in which as many as 800 people were killed.
The chief of defense staff said two suspects had been arrested on Monday in Jos, the capital of Plateau, in possession of dynamite and dangerous weapons.
Armed police patrolled the streets in Jos and surrounding areas on Tuesday to deter further unrest.
Religious violence flares up sporadically in the central “Middle Belt” of Africa’s most populous nation, where the largely Muslim north meets the mostly Christian south.
However, coordinated bomb attacks have not usually featured in previous violence and the governor of Plateau has said the attacks were politically motivated.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of