Five killed in new Nigeria attack

Category: Nigeria Created on Monday, 30 April 2012 12:41 Published Date Written by Associated Press Hits: 712

Two motorcycle-riding suicide bombers have driven into a convoy carrying a top police official in north-east Nigeria, detonating their explosives and killing at least five people, authorities said.

The attack targeted police commissioner Mamman Sule who was being driven in a convoy towards his offices in Jalingo, the capital of Taraba state, said police spokesman Ibiang Mbaseki.

The bombers missed injuring Mr Sule, but the explosives caused massive damage at a roadside market and blew out the glass windows of the nearby state Ministry of Finance building, witnesses said.

The commissioner "was the prime target," Mr Mbaseki said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack which comes after bombers attacked Christian worship services on Sunday at a university campus and a church in northern Nigeria, killing at least 21 people.

Sunday's attacks mirrored others carried out by a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram.

Boko Haram is waging a growing sectarian battle with Nigeria's weak central government, using suicide car bombs and assault rifles in attacks across the country's predominantly Muslim north and around its capital, Abuja.

Those killed have included Christians, Muslims and government officials. The sect has been blamed for killing more than 450 people this year alone.

Diplomats and military officials say Boko Haram has links with two other al Qaida-aligned terrorist groups in Africa. Members of the sect also reportedly have been spotted in northern Mali, an area where Tuareg rebels and hardline Islamists seized control over the past month.

Last Thursday, the sect carried out a suicide car bombing at the Abuja offices of the influential newspaper ThisDay and a bombing at an office building it shared with other publications in the city of Kaduna. At least seven people were killed in those attacks.