LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Two
explosions struck Tuesday near
army and air force bases on the
outskirts of the central Nigerian
city at the heart of riots last
year that killed hundreds,
officials said.
The explosion near the city of
Kaduna caused an unknown
number of injuries, said Yushau
Shuaib, a spokesman for
Nigeria's National Emergency
Management Agency. Shuaib
said officials were trying to
cordon off the area.
Emergency officials confirmed
the blasts occurred at the base
of the 1st Mechanized Division
near the town of Kawo and at
the air force's training base
near Mando. The officials
declined to be named given the
sensitivity of the matter.
Army and air force spokesmen
could not be immediately
reached for comment.
The blasts come as Nigeria
faces increasingly bloody
attacks from a radical Islamist
sect known as Boko Haram.
Kaduna, on Nigeria's dividing
line between its largely
Christian south and Muslim
north, was at the heart of
postelection violence in April.
Mobs armed with machetes and
poison-tipped arrows took over
streets of Kaduna and the
state's rural countryside after
election officials declared
President Goodluck Jonathan
the winner. Followers of his
main opponent, former military
ruler Muhammadu Buhari, a
Muslim, quickly alleged the
vote had been rigged, though
observers largely declared the
vote fair.
Across the nation, at least 800
people died in the April rioting,
Human Rights Watch said.
In Kaduna alone, more than
2,000 died as the government
moved to enact Islamic Shariah
law in 2000. In 2002, rioting
over a newspaper article
suggesting the prophet
Muhammad would have
married a Miss World pageant
contestant killed dozens.

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