18th April, 2012
Nigerian authorities have discovered a house allegedly being used by the militant Boko Haram to manufacture bombs in the country’s northeast, an official said Wednesday.
The raid in Adamawa state led to the recovery of explosives and bomb-making materials, according to Gbenga Jayeoba, head of secret police in the state.
“We located a house in Wuuojabbe district in Jimeta where IEDs and other forms of explosives are manufactured,” Jayeoba said of the Monday night raid, in an interview with AFP.
Items recovered from the house included 30 pieces of electronic detonators, 19 improvised explosive devices, 50 kilogrammes of ammonium nitrate, fuses and 20 kilogrammes of phosphorous.
The owner of the house, allegedly a Boko Haram member, was not there at the time of the raid.
His wife told authorities he had not been there for about three days. She was not arrested as she was apparently unaware of the alleged bomb-making activities.
The US embassy in Nigeria warned on Wednesday that Boko Haram may be planning attacks against hotels or other areas in the Nigerian capital Abuja.
The Boko Haram sect has carried out scores of attacks, mainly in Nigeria’s predominately Muslim north, that have killed more than 1,000 people since mid-2009.