Blasts rock Nigerian army and air force bases

Two explosions struck near army and air force bases near the Nigerian city of Kaduna on Tuesday, the latest in a series of blasts to hit Nigeria’s northern region.

Officials said the cause of the explosions and the number of casualties were not yet known, but confirmed that blasts had occurred at the base of the 1st Mechanized Division near the town of Kawo and at an air force training base near Mando, the Associated Press reported.

Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency, said that officials were trying to cordon off the area. Residents said the windows of an office complex inside the army base had been shattered, the Agence France Presse reported.

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Radical Islamist group Boko Haram has been blamed for the deaths of hundreds in bomb and gun attacks in northern Nigeria, according to Reuters.

It wants sharia law more widely applied, and claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks in Nigeria’s second-biggest city of Kano on January 20 that left at least 185 dead.

Kaduna sits on the line dividing Nigeria’s largely Christian south from its Muslim north, and was at the heart of post-election violence last April. Around 800 people died in rioting after election officials declared President Goodluck Jonathan the victor. 

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