lunes, 12 de agosto de 2013

At Least 11 Killed In Suicide Bomb Attacks At Nigeria Military Church - RTT News

At least eleven people have been killed and more than 30 injured in twin car bomb attacks on a church inside a military barrack in northern Nigeria, media reports citing local officials said late on Sunday.

According to the reports, the suicide bombers struck as the Sunday Mass was in progress at the St. Andrew Military Protestant Church in the military barracks in Jaji in Kaduna State.

The initial explosion was reportedly caused after one of the suicide bombers rammed his explosive-laden car into the walls of the church on Sunday noon. It was soon followed by another suicide car bombing just outside the targeted church.

Nigeria's northern regions are predominantly Muslim, with the south being dominated by Christians. The city of Kaduna is located between the two regions and its population is divided between Christian and Muslim communities.

No group has claimed responsibility for the bombings so far. But local authorities blamed the radical Boko Haram Islamist sect for the attacks. Incidentally, the sect had claimed responsibility for similar church bombings in the past, including last month's suicide bomb attack on a Roman Catholic church in Kaduna in which at least seven people were killed.

Boko is based in the mainly Muslim north and campaigns against Western education, which it considers as anti-Islamic. The group wants to enforce strict Islamic laws in Nigeria after overthrowing the current government. More than 1,400 people were believed to have been killed in that African country since the terror outfit began its campaign of violence in 2009.

The sect came into prominence in July 2009, when hundreds of its members were killed in fighting Nigerian security forces in Maiduguri, including its founding leader Mohammed Yusuf. It has since claimed responsibility for bombing churches, schools, police stations, military facilities, banks, and beer parlors in northern Nigeria.

It had claimed responsibility for the deadly car bomb attack on the U.N. building in Abuja in August, 2011 in which 23 people were killed and more than 80 wounded. It was the second of its kind in the Nigerian capital, following a suicide bomb attack that targeted the police headquarters in June 2011.

Boko had also carried out a series of bomb attacks on churches across Nigeria on 2011 Christmas Day in which at least 42 people were killed, as well as a wave of bomb blasts that left at least 185 people dead in the northern city of Kano in January.

In the wake of the deadly attacks carried out by the group in recent months, Nigeria's military on Friday offered a reward of 50 million naira ($317,000) for nay information leading to the capture or death of suspected Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau. It also offered 10 million naira rewards for each of the other suspected sect leaders.

by RTT Staff Writer

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