Twin suicide car bombs exploded on Sunday at a church inside one of Nigeria’s top military bases, killing at least 11 people and wounding another 30 in an embarrassing attack showing the continued insecurity that haunts Africa’s most populous nation.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but suspicion immediately fell on the radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram, whose suicide bombers target Sunday worship services in what has become a weekly macabre routine in Nigeria.
However, the attack in Jaji on Sunday happened inside a barracks home to the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, one of the country’s most important military colleges.
It also showed a new dangerous sophistication as the second explosion appeared timed to target responders rushing to aid the wounded 10 minutes after the first blast, officials said.
The attack began just after noon and targeted the St Andrew Military Protestant Church, Brigadier General Bola Koleoso said.
A bus loaded with explosives somehow made it inside the barracks’ perimeter and rammed into the church’s walls before exploding, Koleoso said.
The second blast came from a sedan parked nearby and struck in the chaos afterward as emergency workers, soldiers and survivors of the first blast milled around the church, he said.
“Investigation into the bombings have commenced and the area already [has been] cordoned off,” Koleoso said in a text message sent to journalists after the attack.
The military kept journalists away from the scene of the blast and took the wounded to military clinics, limiting independent verification of what happened in the attack.
Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, would only say an explosion happened at the base and referred all questions to the military.
Nigerian security forces, particularly the military, routinely downplay casualty figures in attacks, so the true scope of the attack may never be known.
However, this is not the first time that a major military base has been struck during the increasingly bloody guerrilla fighting waged by Boko Haram.
On New Year’s Eve in 2010, a bomb allegedly planted by the sect exploded at a crowded and popular outdoor beer garden at a military barracks in the capital, Abuja, and killed at least four people.
Sunday’s attack targeted Jaji, which teaches the top military minds in Nigeria.
The area sits just north of the city of Kaduna, a major city in Nigeria’s north that sits on the uneasy dividing line between the country’s predominantly Christian south and Muslim north.
Religious violence and rioting in the city has killed thousands since Nigeria became a democracy in 1999.
‘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