At least 18 killed in attack on U.N. office in Nigeria

Posted on Sat, Aug. 27, 2011

ABUJA, Nigeria - A car loaded with explosives crashed into the main U.N. building in Nigeria's capital and exploded Friday, killing at least 18 people in one of the deadliest assaults on the international body in a decade. A radical Muslim sect blamed for a series of attacks in the country claimed responsibility for the bombing, a major escalation of its sectarian fight against Nigeria's weak central government.

The brazen assault in a neighborhood surrounded by heavily fortified diplomatic posts marked the first suicide attack to target foreigners in oil-rich Nigeria, where people already live in fear of the radical Boko Haram sect.

The group, which has reported links to al-Qaeda, wants to implement a strict version of sharia law in the nation and vehemently opposes Western education and culture.

While police and local officials have primarily borne the brunt of Boko Haram's rage, now everyone seems to be a target in a nation often divided by religion and ethnicity.

"It is an attack on the global community," said Viola Onwuliri, a junior Nigerian foreign minister.

A sedan loaded with explosives crashed through two gates at the exit of the U.N. compound Friday morning as guards tried in vain to stop it, witnesses said. The suicide bomber inside drove the car through the glass front of the main reception area and detonated the explosives, inflicting the most damage possible, a spokesman for the Nigerian National Emergency Management Agency said.

"I saw scattered bodies," said Michael Ofilaje, a UNICEF worker at the four-story building, which he said shook with the explosion. "Many people are dead."

At least 18 people were killed, an AP survey of morgues at four major Abuja hospitals found. Nigerian Health Minister Mohammad Ali Pate made a public appeal for blood donations, saying at least 60 injured people were at the nearby National Hospital.

A huge hole

The headquarters, known as U.N. House, had offices for about 400 employees working for 26 U.N. humanitarian and development agencies. Authorities worked Friday to account for everyone in the building at the time of the blast, which punched a huge hole in the building.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the bombing "an assault on those who devote their lives to helping others." The Security Council called it a "heinous crime."

Anthony Lake, executive director of UNICEF, said it was a reminder of the courage of aid workers "who face similar dangers and who are doing so much for so many around the world."

Said Djinnit, special representative of the U.N. secretary-general for West Africa, said he expected that the casualties were mostly local staff.

'Cowardly'

The attack was one of the deadliest on the United Nations in a decade. Seventeen U.N. civilian staffers were killed along with dozens of others in two car bombings that targeted U.N. and other premises in Algiers in 2007. Friday's bombing came just days after the eighth anniversary of the Aug. 19, 2003, bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad that killed 15 U.N. staff, including top envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello. President Obama called Friday's attack "horrific and cowardly."

Local police spokesman Jimoh Moshood said detectives had begun an investigation. In a statement, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan's office called the attack "barbaric, senseless and cowardly" and promised to increase security in the capital.

Jonathan's administration has struggled to improve security in Nigeria, a nation of 150 million largely split between a Christian south and Muslim north. The Christian president's election in April brought religious and ethnic violence across the north that left 800 people dead.

A spokesman for Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attack in a communique to the BBC's Hausa-language shortwave radio service. Boko Haram, which means "Western education is sacrilege," has carried out a series of bombings and assassinations in northern Nigeria in the last year. But attacking a foreign target is a new and troubling step for the group.

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