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.Abuja attack: Car bomb hits Nigeria UN building
The BBC's Bashir Sa'ad Abdullahi says all of the glass at the front of the building has been blown out
At least 18 people have been killed in an apparent suicide car bombing at the United Nations headquarters in the Nigerian capital, Abuja.
The powerful blast destroyed the lower floors of the building. Dozens have been injured, some critically.
A spokesman for the Islamist group Boko Haram told the BBC in a phone call that it had carried out the attack.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon said the attack was "an assault on those who devote their lives to helping others".
The attack on the UN headquarters indicates a growing sophistication by Boko Haram.
The vehicle broke through two security barriers, probably indicating that it was reinforced to withstand the impact. Then its driver detonated the bomb after crashing it into the UN reception area.
Earlier this month, the commander of the US Africa Command, General Carter Ham, said he had several sources of information showing that Boko Haram had contacts with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which operates in north-west Africa. He said it also had ties with al-Shabab in Somalia.
There have been other, independent, reports of Nigerians fighting alongside al-Shabab.
Together these reports indicate where Boko Haram is getting the expertise needed to carry out its current wave of attacks. What began as a radical group in northern Nigeria is now part of a much wider Islamist movement.
Speaking before Boko Haram's statement, President Goodluck Jonathan reaffirmed his government's "total commitment" to combating terrorism, and said his administration would "spare no effort to bring the perpetrators to justice".
In Friday morning's attack, a car crashed through two security barriers and rammed into the building's reception before exploding, witnesses said.
Hospitals are said to be overwhelmed by the number of injured and have appealed for blood donations.
Boko Haram, which is fighting for the establishment of Sharia law in Nigeria, also said it carried out a car bombing at police headquarters in June.
A UN official in Nigeria, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity, said the UN had stepped up security at all its buildings in Nigeria in the past month after receiving information that the UN could be targeted by Boko Haram.
Analysts say that the scale and target of the attack could point to a link with international terror groups.
FONTE: BBCU.N.'s Ban says Abuja bomb toll likely considerable
(Reuters) - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned Friday's car bomb attack on U.N. offices in Nigeria's capital, Abuja, and said the casualty toll would likely be "considerable," although he had no exact figures.
In a statement to reporters, he said he was sending his deputy, Asha-Rose Migiro, to Nigeria immediately to meet officials in Abuja. Migiro, who is Tanzanian, will be accompanied by U.N. security chief Gregory Starr.
Abuja police said at least 18 people were killed.
The U.N. Security Council opened a previously scheduled meeting on peacekeeping by standing for a minute's silence in honour of the Abuja victims.
"We do not yet have precise casualty figures but they are likely to be considerable," Ban said. "A number of people are dead; many more are wounded."
He said the bombed building housed premises for 26 U.N. humanitarian and development agencies.
"This was an assault on those who devote their lives to helping others," Ban said. "We condemn this terrible act, utterly."
U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said the Abuja building had been well protected, but that Starr, who formerly worked for the U.S. State Department's diplomatic security unit, would "try to see what we could learn better about how our defenses were breached."
A 2007 attack on a U.N. building in Algiers, which killed at least 41 people, including 17 U.N. staff, led to the resignation of Starr's predecessor, Briton David Veness, as allegations arose the facility had been inadequately defended.
Haq said there was a series of barriers outside the Abuja building. "There was a way, it seems, in which this particular vehicle or an explosive device got through. In other words, the car got through a couple of gates that were defended by security guards," he told reporters.
"How that happened, how they got past security, we'll need to determine," he said.
Haq said the United Nations had been improving security at buildings around the world. He declined to say what the threat level had been in Abuja but said there had been no previous threat against the building.
Nigerian U.N. Ambassador Joy Ogwu described the attack as "transnational terrorism."
She told reporters: "This new threat on the institution of the United Nations should be met with a new response. I think at this time we should begin, as an institution, to step up efforts to bring to book the perpetrators of these crimes."
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Incredibile questo attentato che ha colpito proprio un edificio di persone che lavorano per aiutare la gente
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