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Nigeria militants threaten new bomb attack in Abuja

16 October 2010 04:17 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. A Nigerian militant group said on Friday it planned to carry out another bomb attack in the capital Abuja, two weeks after claiming responsibility for car bombings in the city which killed at least 10 people, APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
In a statement emailed to news organizations, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said it would give 30 minutes’ warning to avoid civilian casualties but gave no further details on the timing or location.
It accused President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration of arresting innocent people in response to the October 1 bombings near an independence day parade and said Henry Okah, a militant leader on trial in South Africa over the attacks, was innocent.
"Since both (the Nigerian and South African) governments are bent on blaming innocent persons on ridiculous insinuations and unrelated evidence, we have decided to carry out another attack in Abuja without altering our mode of operation to prove the suspects’ innocence," the emailed statement said.
"As usual we will give a thirty minutes advance warning to avoid civilian casualties, then sit back and watch how the blame game will be played out on all those already falsely accused," the statement said.
It was sent from the same Yahoo! email address and signed with the same pseudonym, Jomo Gbomo, used by MEND to claim both the independence day bombings and previous attacks on oil infrastructure in the Niger Delta.
MEND issued a similar statement warning of imminent attacks shortly before two car bombs went off in Abuja on October 1.