At least 18 die in car bomb attack on Nigeria UN HQ

Security sources suspect local Islamist sect or al-Qaida's N.African arm; Ban Ki-moon condemns attack, says death toll will be considerable.

By REUTERS
Nigeria UN bomb 311 (photo credit: REUTERS)
Nigeria UN bomb 311
(photo credit: REUTERS)
ABUJA - A car bomb ripped through the United Nations' headquarters in the Nigerian capital of Abuja on Friday, killing at least 18 people, in an attack reminiscent ofa June blast claimed by a local radical Islamist sect.   
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack and said the casualty toll was likely to be considerable.   
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Security sources and witnesses said the car rammed into the building and blew up, badly damaging parts of an office complex where close to 400 people normally work for UN agencies.   
Body parts were strewn on the ground as emergency workers, soldiers and police swarmed around the building, cordoned roads and rushed the wounded to hospital.    
"Different people have been taken to different hospitals so we're not sure of casualty figures. It is at least 18," said Mike Zuokumor, Abuja police commissioner.   
No one claimed responsibility for the attack. However, one Abuja-based security source suspected the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram, whose strikes have been growing in intensity and spreading further afield, or al-Qaida's North African arm.   
 
"This is very likely the work of Boko Haram and, or, AQIM (al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb) and is a serious escalation in the security situation in Nigeria," the security source said. "This is the worst thing that could have happened."   
     
In Friday's attack the car slammed through security gates of the UN complex, crashed into the basement and exploded, sending vehicles flying and setting the building ablaze.   
"When the car got inside it went straight to the basement and exploded, killing people in reception, right and left," said Abuja resident James John, who witnessed the attack. "The entire building, from the ground floor to the topmost, was just fire and smoke. I saw six bodies been carried. I can't believe it."   
"All the people in the basement were all killed. Their bodies are littered all over the place. I saw about five dead bodies," said Ocilaje Michael, a UN employee at the complex.   
The building was blackened from top to bottom. In places, walls were blown away and there were piles of debris from the explosion.