Nigeria finds bomb factory

Nigerian authorities say they have found a bomb-making factory near Abuja and had arrested six suspected members or people connected with violent Islamist sect Boko Haram, including a foreign fighter from neighbour Niger.  

Authorities are investigating a bombing of the UN headquarters on Aug. 26 that killed 23 people in the Nigerian capital. Last week they arrested two suspected Boko Haram members over the attack and said they suspected a third member with an al Qaeda connection led the plot.  

A statement from the Department of State Services (DSS) said the six people detained were wanted in connection with the bombings of an electoral commission office on April 8, just before presidential elections, and of a church on July 10 — both in the town of Suleja, just outside the capital Abuja. They were also wanted for the killing of four policemen.  

It did not link them directly with the Abuja bomb on the UN headquarters.  

“The five suspects all confessed that the main supplier of the explosive materials used for their bombing operations is a miner from Nasarawa State who the Service eventually arrested on 30th August, 2011,” the statement from DSS spokeswoman Maryln Ogar said.  

The others were arrested over the month of August, it said.  

“A non-descript building where the Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) are assembled has been uncovered at an area popularly known as Chechnya, Hayin-Uku village,” she said.  

The statement listed what it called “the merchandise of death” found at the factory. It included a gas cylinder, three detonators, one attached to a battery, several pieces of detonators, shrapnel, batteries and cables.  

It made no mention of any explosives, beyond the gas cylinder.  

Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is sinful” in the northern Nigerian Hausa language, has become President Goodluck Jonathan’s most intractable security challenge.  

It has carried out frequent shootings or attacks with homemade bombs against security services and civilians in the remote northeast.  

The UN bombing marks an increase in the sophistication of Boko Haram’s attacks, possibly with better explosives, and an escalation from local to international targets, analysts say.