Nigeria was on high alert yesterday after the US warned of fresh attacks following a wave of deadly blasts claimed by Islamists killed 150 people in the northeast of the country.
Friday’s attacks in the city of Damaturu were among the deadliest ever carried out by Boko Haram, an Islamist sect based in the north of Africa’s most populous country.
The US embassy in Nigeria warned the sect could next strike hotels and other targets in the capital Abuja during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
PHOTO: AFP
“Following the recent Boko Haram, aka Nigerian Taliban, attacks in Borno and Yobe State, the US embassy has received information that Boko Haram may plan to attack -several locations and hotels in Abuja,” the embassy said in a statement.
Security was stepped up in Abuja, which has been a target of past attacks, including an Aug. 26 suicide bomb at the UN headquarters, which claimed 24 lives.
The US embassy said potential targets could include the Nicon Luxury, the Sheraton and the Transcorp Hilton, Abuja’s premier hotels. Embassy staff had been told to avoid the venues.
Some 13,000 policemen and specialist anti-terror squads were deployed to mosques and churches and other strategic locations across the city on Sunday, a police official said. Worshippers were screened by metal detectors before they entered some churches.
In the grief-stricken city of Damaturu where the 150 died, thousands of Muslims gathered for Eid el-Adha (Festival of Sacrifice) prayers at an open ground patrolled by dozens of armed police.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who described the wave of gun and bomb attacks in the capital of Yobe state as “heinous,” appealed to Muslims to pray for peace as they marked Eid.
“It is a period that we are all expected to live in peace but as a nation we have our own challenges, even during this holy period we still have incidents happening here and there,” he said.
While churches and police were among the initial targets, gunmen fired indiscriminately in the streets. Muslims and Christians alike were among those killed.
“The death toll cuts across religion, profession, status,” said Ibrahim Farinloye, a spokesman for Nigeria’s emergency management agency. “The attack seems to have been haphazardly carried out which explains the heavy toll. Both Muslims, Christians, civilians, soldiers, policemen and other paramilitary personnel were all part of the casualties.”
Eid celebrations in the sleepy and dusty city of Damaturu were low key on Sunday.
“People are struggling to strike a balance between the merriment of the season and the losses the city has incurred from the attacks, especially the large number of people that have been killed,” resident Aisami Bundi said.
Opposition Action Congress party of Nigeria said it was “horrified” at the scale of the attacks alleging “government has now run out of ideas on how to tackle this crisis.”
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion