A radical Islamist sect has claimed responsibility for Nigeria’s first suicide bombing, saying the attack that killed two at Abuja’s police headquarters targeted the country’s police chief.
“We are responsible for the bomb attack on the police headquarters in Abuja, which was to prove a point to all those who doubt our capability,” the group known as Boko Haram said late on Thursday after the attack.
The powerful explosion ripped through the car park inside the police headquarters compound, killing a police officer and the bomber, wounding several others and destroying dozens of cars, according to police.
Local media said the death toll could be higher.
Security experts said it was the first suicide bombing in Nigeria, a country facing a growing threat from Islamic militants.
Boko Haram said it regretted missing its target, which it named as Nigerian Police Inspector-General Hafiz Ringim.
In the statement signed by spokesman Abu Zaid, the group said the police chief had recently been making “unguarded utterances to the effect that he will crush us in a matter of days.”
Witnesses said the motorcade of a senior police officer had driven into the headquarters just minutes before the attack. Police said the bomber drove into the car park and set off the bomb as he was about to be submitted to a routine search. Local media say the bomber was trailing the police chief as he drove into the compound.
Shortly after the attack, police blamed Islamists who a day earlier had threatened to step up a campaign of violence that has already seen scores of deadly attacks.
Boko Haram, sometimes called the Nigerian Taliban, had warned on Wednesday of “fiercer” attacks saying it was angered by a police declaration that its days were “numbered.”
The sect, believed to be based in the northeastern city of Maiduguri, this week admitted links with a foreign Islamist group connected to al-Qaeda, saying some of its members had just returned from training in Somalia. Security experts earlier speculated that it had established ties with Islamists in North Africa.
“We will continue to launch similar attacks on the police headquarters. We will not relent,” said the group, which has warned it will wage a jihad, or holy war.
Police spokesman Yemi Ajayi yesterday said an investigation into the attack was under way.
“We will leave no stone -unturned,” Ajayi said. “We already suspected Boko Haram over the attack. So we are not surprised that they claimed responsibility for it.”
Several people were wounded in the explosion, according to Red Cross official Umar Abdul Mairiga, who said volunteers had picked up body parts, but could not say how many were killed.
Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sin,” launched an uprising in 2009 that was put down by a brutal military assault that left hundreds dead, mostly sect members.
It has pushed for the creation of an Islamic state and been blamed for shootings of police and community leaders, bomb blasts and raids on churches, police stations and a prison.
Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a spate of bombings near Abuja and in the north, claiming 18 lives, after Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s inauguration about two weeks ago.
However, it was the first suicide bombing in Nigeria, although a would-be suicide bomber from Nigeria attempted to bring down a US airliner on Christmas Day in 2009.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in