Nigeria Boko Haram claims explosions in Abuja, Lagos
Date 2014/7/14 16:53:59 | Topic: Nigeria
|  The head of Nigeria’s Takfiri group Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for a deadly bomb attack in the capital Abuja and an assault hours later in Lagos.
“We were the ones who detonated the bomb in filthy Abuja,” Boko Haram chief Abubakar Shekau said in a 16-minute video on Sunday.
The attack on a popular shopping center in the heart of the capital left at least 22 people dead on June 25. Later that day a huge blast rocked the Apapa port district in the city of Lagos, which the officials blamed on a cooking gas explosion, with no casualties.
Reports said that the explosion in Lagos was a deliberate assault involving high explosives, but the government has said it was too soon to determine if the blast was a bomb attack.
“A bomb went off in Lagos. I ordered (the bomber) who went and detonated it,” Shekau said in the video.
He also expressed support for the Takfiri ISIL militants who are fighting against the governments in Iraq and Syria.
In the video, Shekau mocks the social media and protest campaign, Bring Back Our Girls, which emerged after Boko Haram militants abducted nearly 300 schoolgirls on April 14 from the northeastern town of Chibok.
Reports say 57 of the girls managed to escape, but 219 are still missing and international efforts to spot and rescue them have failed so far.
Boko Haram -- whose name means “Western education is forbidden” -- says its goal is to overthrow the Nigerian government.
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