Blasts in Nigerian Newspaper kill At Least 6 People

At least six people have died in two bomb attacks on newspaper offices in Nigeria.

A suicide bomber detonated a car at the office of a major Nigerian newspaper in the capital Abuja and another man threw a bomb near another newspaper office in Kaduna.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, though they mirrored others previously carried out by a radical Islamist sect.

In Abuja, the suicide bomber rammed his car through the gates of the ThisDay daily newspaper office and drove into the reception area before the explosion. Three were killed and others wounded, the Red Cross said.

Soldiers and police officers quickly surrounded the building, which had part of its roof torn away and all its windows blown out.

The company’s printing press was reportedly damaged.

The attack in Kaduna also included a car loaded with explosives, though people at the newspaper office which houses ThisDay, The Moment and The Daily Sun newspapers quickly surrounded the car, witnesses said.

The driver then began shouting that there was a bomb inside the car. Those there allowed the man to open the boot of the car and he pulled out an object and threw it at the crowd, which exploded, killing three people.

It is unclear why bombers targeted ThisDay. In 2002, rioting over an article published by ThisDay suggesting the Prophet Muhammed would have married a Miss World pageant contestant killed dozens in Kaduna.

The attack comes as the radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram continues its violent campaign against Nigeria’s weak central government. The sect is blamed for killed more than 440 people this year.

 

 

 

 

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