At least 18 people were killed in a car bomb attack on the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria’s capital on Friday, amid concern that Islamist extremists in the continent’s leading oil producer have linked up with al-Qaeda affiliates elsewhere in Africa.
A senior Nigerian official said it was not yet clear who was responsible for the blast but suspicion quickly fell on a radical Islamist sect, Boko Haram, responsible for a string of bombs and assassinations since 2009. A UN official told the BBC the UN received intelligence last month that it could be targeted by the sect.
Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary-general, said the attack was ”an assault on those who devote their lives to helping others”. If Islamists were responsible it would mark an escalation from what has hitherto been a relatively localised campaign of violence, with ramifications for international businesses and organisations operating in the country.
“We believe it represents an expansion in the scope of Islamist militant attacks from the symbols of the domestic Nigerian state – such as police stations and government buildings – to include the country’s international presence,” an analyst at Control Risks said of the blast.
The Nigerian official said it was too early to confirm this theory and that it was possible those responsible were pursuing a national political agenda. “This could also be about power at the centre. In most cases things become clearer the day after, but it is clear at least that this is an attempt to make the government look weak,” he said. It is the third time that Abuja, the federal capital, has been targeted. Nigeria’s national police headquarters were hit in June in a blast also blamed on Boko Haram, which translates loosely as “western education is sinful”, and two car-bomb attacks marred Nigeria’s celebrations of its 50th year of independence last October. Those attacks were claimed by militants from the oil producing Niger delta.
The administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, who was elected in April after serving as president following the death in office of his predecessor Umaru Yar’Adua a year before, has had success in defusing violence in the oil producing and mostly Christian south.
But it has struggled to curtail the conflict with Boko Haram militants since clashes between security forces and the sect near its base in the remote north-east claimed some 800 lives in 2009.
Earlier this month, General Carter Ham , the commander for US military operations in Africa, said the sect may be trying to link with two al-Qaeda affiliated groups in other African countries to mount joint attacks in Nigeria.
Nigeria has spawned a string of different radical Islamist groups over the past three decades. But until now little evidence has emerged of sustained links with terrorist groups outside the country.
Gen Ham told the Associated Press during a visit to Nigeria this month that “multiple sources” indicated that Boko Haram had made contacts with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which operates in north Africa, and with al-Shabab militants in Somalia. Witnesses said the blast was caused when a car laden with explosives burst through one of the UN compound’s gates and made its way close to the four-storey building in the diplomatic area of Abuja, not far from the US embassy. The building houses about 400 employees of the UN in Nigeria.
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“We believe it represents an expansion in the scope of Islamist militant attacks from the symbols of the domestic Nigerian state – such as police stations and government buildings – to include the country’s international presence,” an analyst at Control Risks said of the blast.
The Nigerian official said it was too early to confirm this theory and that it was possible those responsible were pursuing a national political agenda. “This could also be about power at the centre. In most cases things become clearer the day after, but it is clear at least that this is an attempt to make the government look weak,” he said. It is the third time that Abuja, the federal capital, has been targeted. Nigeria’s national police headquarters were hit in June in a blast also blamed on Boko Haram, which translates loosely as “western education is sinful”, and two car-bomb attacks marred Nigeria’s celebrations of its 50th year of independence last October. Those attacks were claimed by militants from the oil producing Niger delta.
The administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, who was elected in April after serving as president following the death in office of his predecessor Umaru Yar’Adua a year before, has had success in defusing violence in the oil producing and mostly Christian south.
But it has struggled to curtail the conflict with Boko Haram militants since clashes between security forces and the sect near its base in the remote north-east claimed some 800 lives in 2009.
Earlier this month, General Carter Ham , the commander for US military operations in Africa, said the sect may be trying to link with two al-Qaeda affiliated groups in other African countries to mount joint attacks in Nigeria.
Nigeria has spawned a string of different radical Islamist groups over the past three decades. But until now little evidence has emerged of sustained links with terrorist groups outside the country.
Gen Ham told the Associated Press during a visit to Nigeria this month that “multiple sources” indicated that Boko Haram had made contacts with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which operates in north Africa, and with al-Shabab militants in Somalia. Witnesses said the blast was caused when a car laden with explosives burst through one of the UN compound’s gates and made its way close to the four-storey building in the diplomatic area of Abuja, not far from the US embassy. The building houses about 400 employees of the UN in Nigeria.
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