Ahmed Saka, The Associated Press
JOS, Nigeria — Two explosions hit a bustling bus terminal and market frequented by thousands of people in Nigeria’s central city of Jos on Tuesday afternoon, and police said there are an unknown number of casualties.
The blasts could be heard miles away, indicating they were sizable.
The cause was not immediately known, but the explosions come amid a bombing campaign by Nigeria’s Boko Haram terrorist network, the extremists threatening to sell nearly 300 abducted schoolgirls into slavery.
The girls were seized more than a month ago from a remote town in the northeast that is the traditional stronghold of the Islamic extremists who want to turn Nigeria into an Islamic state under Shariah law. Half of Nigeria’s population of 170 million is Christian.
Jos is in Nigeria’s middle belt region in Plateau state, which divides the country into the predominantly Muslim north and Christian south.
Two separate bomb blasts in April killed more than 120 people and wounded more than 200 in Abuja, the capital in the centre of the country. A suicide car bomber killed 25 people in northern Kano city on Monday. Police there detonated a second car bomb Monday.
The official News Agency of Nigeria quoted Maj. Gen. Dave Enebe confirming the two explosions in Jos but saying it was too early to give casualty figures.
The Islamic militants’ attacks are coming with increasing frequency and deadliness despite a year-old military state of emergency to curtail the uprising. More than 2,000 people have died in the insurgency this year, compared to an estimated 3,600 between 2010 and 2013.
Biafra Galaxy
