Series of bombings hit Nigerian churches

A series of apparently coordinated bombings targeting churches in northern Nigeria yesterday killed at least 17 people and provoked reprisals against Muslims by mobs of angry Christians.

There were unconfirmed reports that several were killed

Explosions hit churches in four cities in Kaduna state in the latest in a series of attacks on Sunday congregations in the majority Muslim north of the country.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, but Nigeria's al-Qaeda-linked Islamist terror group Boko Haram has carried out at least 10 similar strikes so far this year.

Authorities in Kaduna imposed a 24-hour curfew ordering everyone to stay indoors after gangs of young men blocked a major highway heading south out of the state capital and dragged Muslims from their cars.

There were unconfirmed reports that several were killed, and that the attacks were to revenge the bombings earlier in the day.

Four children playing outside a church in Zaria were among the first victims of yesterday's blasts, at the Evangelical GoodNews Church in the city's Sabon-Gari district.

Five men ran up to the church and hurled home-made bombs through its open door, witnesses said. They were chased down and reportedly beaten to death. Police could not confirm this.

Across Zaria, a suicide bomber in a blue Honda saloon car targeted the Christ The King Catholic Cathedral, driving his vehicle at its entrance and detonating explosives, killing three people including himself.

Those attacks took place within minutes of each other.

Less than an hour later, another blast took place at a church in Kaduna, the state's capital city, killing at least 10 people and wounding 29, according to Andronicus Adeyemo, an official with the Nigerian Red Cross.

Then there were two more explosions at churches in the south of the state.

"There were two simultaneous bomb attacks on churches in Nassarawa and Barnawa in the south of Kaduna this morning. We are yet to get information on casualties," Aliyu Mohammed, spokesman for Nigeria's emergency management agency said.

The strikes, assuming they were coordinated by Boko Haram, suggested a new level of targeted attacks by the group and could provoke severe retaliations against Muslims in Nigeria, one diplomat said.

"Every weekend now there is a new attack, and it seems that what they are trying to do is make the Christians so angry that they go on the rampage against Muslim interests," the diplomat, who wished to remain anonymous, said.

"We have seen that today with these attacks on Muslims on the road out of Kaduna. If those riots spread, then we fear that there will be counter-reprisals by Muslim youth. It could spiral very quickly." Boko Haram, whose name translates as "Western education is sin", has stated that it wants northern Nigeria ruled according to a strict interpretation of Islamic law, and that Christians should leave for the country's south.

Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, is evenly split between Muslims, who live mostly in the north, and Christians in the south.

Until recently, there were sporadic eruptions of violence between the two communities, but the increasing reach of Boko Haram threatens to deepen divisions and prompt further revenge attacks.

Christian preachers and bishops in northern Nigeria have urged their congregations not to retaliate against the church attacks.

Before yesterday's bombings, at least 96 people had been killed in 12 separate attacks on churches or places of Christian worship in northern Nigeria so far this year. Boko Haram has explicitly claimed that it planned at least 10 of them.