Devil in Action (1)
ABUJA
Islamist militants set off bombs across Nigeria on Christmas
Day—three targeting churches including one that killed at least 27
people—raising fears that they are trying to ignite sectarian civil war.
The Boko Haram Islamist sect, which aims to impose sharia
law across the country, claimed responsibility for the three church bombs, the
second Christmas in a row the group has caused mass carnage with deadly
bombings of churches. Security forces also blamed the sect for two other blasts
in the north.
St Theresa's Catholic Church in Madala, a satellite town
about 40 km (25 miles) from the center of the capital Abuja, was packed when
the bomb exploded just outside.
"We were in the church with my family when we heard the
explosion. I just ran out," Timothy Onyekwere told Reuters. "Now I
don't even know where my children or my wife are. I don't know how many were
killed but there were many dead."
Hours after the first bomb, blasts were reported at the
Mountain of Fire and Miracles Church in the central, ethnically and religiously
mixed town of Jos, and at a church in northern Yobe state at the town of
Gadaka. Residents said many were wounded in Gadaka, but there were no immediate
further details.
A suicide bomber killed four security officials at the State
Security Service in one of the other bombs, which struck the northeastern town
of Damaturu, police said. Residents heard two loud explosions and gunfire in
the town.
A Reuters reporter at the church near Abuja saw the front
roof had been destroyed, as had several houses nearby. Five burnt out cars were
still smoldering. There were scenes of chaos, as shocked residents stared at
the wreckage in disbelief.
"Mass just ended and people were rushing out of the
church and suddenly I heard a loud sound: 'Gbam!' Cars were in flames and
bodies littered everywhere," Nnana Nwachukwu told Reuters.
Father Christopher Barde, assistant priest of the church,
said: "The officials who counted told me they have picked up 27 bodies so
far."
Police cordoned off the area around the church. Thousands of
furious youths set up burning road blocks on the highway from Abuja leading to
Nigeria's largely Muslim north.
Police and the military tried to disperse them by firing
live rounds into the air with tear gas.
"We are so angry," shouted Kingsley Ukpabi, as a
queue of hooting vehicles lined up behind his flaming barrage.
Attacks increase
Boko Haram—which in the Hausa language spoken in northern
Nigeria means "Western education is sinful"—is loosely modeled on the
Taliban movement in Afghanistan.
It has emerged as the biggest security threat in Nigeria, a
country of 160 million split evenly between Christians and Muslims, who for the
most part live side by side in peace.
Its low level insurgency used to be largely confined to
northeastern Nigeria, but it has struck several parts of the north, center and
the capital Abuja this year.
Last Christmas Eve, a series of bomb blasts around Jos
killed 32 people, and other people died in attacks on two churches in the
northeast.
At the church near Abuja, a wounded man whose legs were
almost shattered to pieces by the blast was loaded onto a stretcher near an
ambulance by security services.
"I'll survive," he said in a hushed voice.
The blast in Jos, a tinderbox of ethnic and sectarian
tensions that sometimes sees deadly clashes between Muslims and Christians, was
accompanied by a shooting spree by militants, who exchanged fire with local
police, said Charles Ezeocha, special taskforce spokesman for Jos.
"We lost one policeman and we have made four arrests. I
think we can use them to get more information and work on that," he said.
Police found four other explosive devices in Jos, which they deactivated, he
added.
President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian from the south who
is struggling to contain the threat of Islamist militancy, called the incidents
"unfortunate" but said Boko Haram would "not be (around) for
ever. It will end one day."
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