Afolabi Sodtunde/Reuters
A victim of a blast that ripped through the United Nations offices on Friday in Abuja was carried into an ambulance.
By SENAN MURRAY and RICK GLADSTONE
Friday, August 26, 2011
Boko Haram, a shadowy Nigerian Islamist insurgency group with possible links to Al Qaeda’s affiliates in the region, claimed responsibility in a telephone call to the BBC’s Hausa language broadcast service in northern Nigeria. If confirmed, it would signal a leap in the scope of Boko Haram’s targets to now include international organizations.
United Nations officials said the total number of dead and wounded was likely to rise considerably. Abuja hospitals issued a call for blood donors as the police and fire and rescue squads sealed off the area and pulled survivors and bodies from the wreckage of the bomb, which destroyed at least two floors of the seven-story structure.
“We condemn this terrible act, utterly,” Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary General, said in a statement delivered at the United Nations headquarters in New York.
Joy Ogwu, Nigeria’s ambassador to the United Nations, called for renewed efforts to fight terrorism in her country, saying “My government deplores unequivocally this heinous attack, not only on the civilian population, but especially on the U.N. family and the U.N. as an institution.”
She called the attack a “transnational crime,” noting that “this act provides a new dimension to threats on the domestic front.”
In Washington, President Obama also denounced the bombing and said “an attack on Nigerian and international public servants demonstrates the bankruptcy of the ideology that led to this heinous action.”
Twenty-six United Nations agencies, including the United Nations Development Program, Unicef and the United Nations Population Fund, maintained offices in the building, which is close to the United States Embassy and the Nigerian national defense headquarters.
While the attack on the United Nations was unprecedented for Nigeria, it did not come as a total surprise. United Nations officials confirmed privately that the organization had stepped up security at all its buildings in Nigeria in the past month after receiving information that it could be targeted by Boko Haram. The officials said they were now evaluating new threats and would be further strengthening security at United Nations facilities in Nigeria.
The Nigerian government has come under repeated attack by insurgents in the restive north and south of the country, and foreign oil companies and their workers have been a common target of rebels in the Niger Delta in the south, who demand a greater share in the nation’s oil profits. But the deadly strike on international humanitarian organizations was a surprising turn in the violence that has gripped parts of the country.
The Abuja blast came against a backdrop of rising concern about Boko Haram, which has conducted near-daily shootings and bombings in the north. Western officials have expressed alarm over growing evidence that the group has started collaborating with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a Qaeda affiliate in northern Africa. Boko Haram, which advocates a stricter interpretation of Sharia law in the largely Muslim north, took responsibility for bombing the national police headquarters in June.
Farhan Haq, a United Nations deputy spokesman, said the suicide bomber’s car rammed through two gates surrounding the building at around 11 a.m. local time as guards attempted to stop the vehicle. Witnesses said a huge explosion sent billows of smoke over the area and spread panic.
Adebayo Jelil, a security guard at the building, said in an interview that he saw a big jeep-like vehicle drive through the exit gate of the building, head straight for reception area and explode. He said at least three floors of the building were heavily damaged, with walls blasted away and cables and rods protruding.
Michael Ofilaje, a United Nations worker at the building, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying he saw scattered bodies. “Many people are dead,” he said.
Photographs posted on the Internet from the News Agency of Nigeria showed what it said was the mangled wreckage of the suicide bomber’s vehicle and rescue workers clambering up ladders into an enormous hole in the building’s edifice.
In recent years, United Nations offices have been the targets of lethal attacks in Iraq, Algeria and Afghanistan, but this is the first time the organization’s operations in Nigeria have been attacked, Mr. Haq said.
Ken Wiwa Jr., an aide to President Goodluck Jonathan, said Boko Haram’s activities in northern Nigeria have vexed the president. “It’s the priority item,” Mr. Wiwa said. “A lot of resources have been devoted to tackle the problems of the north. There have been behind the scenes attempts to have dialogue with Boko Haram. We don’t know who is behind this.”
“Suicide bombers can strike anywhere,” he added. “We’ve been able to tackle some of the gravest problems in the Niger Delta. This is a new thing in Nigeria.”
Henry Wilkinson, the head analyst at the London office of Janussian Risk Advisory, a consulting group, said that if Boko Haram was indeed responsible, then the scale and method of the attack suggested that it had adopted the tactics of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, the group that took responsibility for a similar attack on United Nations offices in Algeria four years ago.
“It pretty much confirms that Boko Haram has moved into the Al Qaeda orbit,” he said. “This all points to a clear trend that Boko Haram is evolving and expanding its targets.”
As a result, he said, “the threats to international organizations, to Western organizations, is now increasing in Nigeria. I think you’ll find that many Western organizations will be re-evaluating what the threat is.”
Senan Murray reported from Abuja, Nigeria, and Rick Gladstone from New York. Reporting was contributed by Adam Nossiter from Dakar, Senegal, Dan Bilefsky from the United Nations and Nick Cumming-Bruce from Geneva.
Source: New York Times