Kano: A Nigerian radical
Islamist sect has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb
attack on police headquarters in the capital Abuja that killed
two, saying their target was the police chief.
"We are responsible for the bomb attack on the police
headquarters in Abuja which was to prove a point to all those
who doubt our capability," the group known as Boko Haram said
after the attack late Thursday.
The powerful explosion, believed to the first suicide
bombing by Islamist extremists in Nigeria, ripped through the
police headquarters car park, killing a police officer and the
bomber, wounding several others and destroying dozens of cars,
according to police.
"It is unfortunate that we could not accomplish our
mission because our target was the inspector-general of
police, Hafiz Ringim," the group said in a statement
distributed anonymously in the north eastern city of Maiduguri
where the sect is believed to be based.
Witnesses said the motorcade of a senior police
officer had driven into the headquarters just minutes before
the attack.
Boko Haram, sometimes called the Nigerian Taliban, had
warned Wednesday of "fiercer" attacks saying it was angered by
a police declaration that its days were "numbered."
In the statement signed by spokesman Abu Zaid, the
group said the police chief had recently been making
"unguarded utterances to the effect that he will crush us in a
matter of days."
The sect this week admitted links with a foreign
Islamist group connected to Al-Qaeda, but security experts
earlier speculated that it had established ties with Islamists
in north Africa.
It said some of its members had just returned from
training in Somalia.
PTI
First Published: Friday, June 17, 2011, 16:18