Nigeria: 2 Boko Haram suspects arrested in UN HQ bombing
Nigeria’s secret police said Wednesday it arrested two suspected members of a radical Muslim sect that organized a car bombing at the United Nations’ headquarters in the oil-rich nation that killed 23 people.
The agency also said it sought a third man who they said had “al-Qaida links who returned recently from Somalia.”
The State Security Service issued a statement Wednesday saying the two suspects were members of the radical Muslim group known locally as Boko Haram. But the statement raised new questions about how much the secretive agency knew before Friday’s bombing that left another 81 people wounded — as it acknowledged it had warning about a coming attack and that the men were arrested before the driver ever made it to the U.N. compound.
The agency said it received word Aug. 18 about a possible car bomb attack in Abuja. On Aug. 21, the secret police said it arrested Babagana Ismail Kwaljima and Babagan Mali, two men they said had ties to Boko Haram and were planning the attack.