Nigeria under attack

NIGERIA - 30/04/12 - At least 11 people were killed in a bomb attack on a police convoy in Jalingo, a town in north-eastern Nigeria, police say. "A bomber on a motorcycle rammed into the police escort rider," a police spokesman said. The attack comes a day after at least 20 people were killed at several churches including a church based in the Bayero University, Kano in northern Nigeria where hundreds have died in Islamist attacks this year. Boko Haram has alledgedly realeased a youtube recording of the event claiming it carried the attack. The Radical Islamist sect Boko Haram has carried out several suicide bombings across the mainly Muslim north of Nigeria, where it wants to establish Islamic law. The attack in Jalingo targeted local police commissioner Mamman Sule, according to a police spokesman quoted by AP news agency. Reports say the official was travelling to work in the convoy in Taraba state, on the border with Cameroon. Mr Sule was unhurt but the huge explosion ripped through a nearby market and the local finance ministry offices. At least 22 people were wounded in the blast, Red Cross officials said. On Sunday, churches were targeted in northern Nigeria's main city of Kano, as well as Maiduguri, where Boko Haram first emerged. Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is forbidden", has targeted government institutions, churches and bars as well as mosques belonging to rival Muslim groups across northern Nigeria. It has also attacked the UN headquarters in the capital, Abuja.

Site of the recent explosion - Bayero University now closed

Victims of the explosion in Bayero Four people were killed at This Day offices in Abuja

President Jonathan the head of state of Nigeria

Increasing Attacks
Clashes between Boko Haram gunmen and security forces have flared up several times in Kano since the sect killed 186 people in January, its deadliest attack so far.
On Easter Sunday, 36 people were killed when a suspected member of Boko Haram attempted to force a car packed with explosives into a church compound during a service in the northern town of Kaduna.
After being stopped by security he turned back and the bomb exploded near a large group of motorbike taxi riders.
Boko Haram set off a series of bombs across Nigeria on Christmas Day last year, including one at a church outside the capital Abuja that killed at least 37 people.
Africa's most populous nation of more than 180 million is split roughly equally between a largely Christian south and a mostly Muslim north.
Suicide car bombers targeted the offices of Nigerian newspaper This Day in Abuja and in Kaduna last week, killing at least four people in coordinated strikes.
This Day is based in southern Nigeria and is broadly supportive of President Goodluck Jonathan's government - the main target of Boko Haram's insurgency.