Abuja - Boko Haram
leader Abubakar Shekau has claimed responsibility for two explosions on June 25
at a fuel depot in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial hub, in a video seen by Reuters
on Sunday, which if true would be the militants' first recorded attack on the
city.
“A bomb went off
in Lagos. I ordered (the bomber) who went and detonated it,” Shekau said.
Authorities said
the blasts on Creek Road were an accident caused by a gas canister, but the
security sources told Reuters that was a cover-up meant to prevent panic in the
city of 21 million people. At least two people were killed.
Shekau also
claimed a bomb in a shopping mall in Abuja's upmarket Wuse II district that
killed 24 people, the third in the capital since April and among a growing body
of evidence that its attacks are spreading southwards.
A military
spokesman declined to comment, saying it was a police matter. A spokesman for
police headquarters said that only Lagos police could comment. A spokeswoman
for Lagos police division, however, did not respond to a request for comment.
“You said it was
an ordinary fire, but it was me in that fire. Well, you can hide it from people
but you can't hide it from Allah,” Shekau says in the video, which shows him
next to gunmen in front of two armoured personnel carriers and two pickup
trucks.
A confirmed attack
by Boko Haram would be a cause for concern. Lagos is both an international
business hub and a usually peaceful but at times uneasy melting pot of ethnicities
from the mostly Christian south and Muslim north that have fought street
battles in the past.
The target of the
Lagos bombs was a fuel depot. Had it gone up, it could have caused a massive
chain explosion and disrupted Nigeria's mostly imported fuel supply.
Security sources
say it may have been the work of a group or individual inspired by Boko Haram,
and point out that its failure to hit its target makes it unlikely this was an
expertly trained bomber. Shekau has been known to claim attacks suspected to be
the work of another Islamist group or a criminal gang.
Shekau gets the
name of the governor of Lagos State wrong in the video, mocking Adams
Oshiomole, who is in fact the governor of the southern Edo State.
Shekau also
ridicules Western education - Boko Haram means Western education is forbidden -
along with “the ideologies of America, England, France, China and the whole
world”.
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