BREAKING NEWS
Blast rocks police headquarters in Nigeria
Powerful explosion inside car park of building in Abuja, the capital, at least one person killed.
A powerful bomb blast has struck Nigeria's police headquarters in Abuja, the country's capital, killing at least one person.
The explosion took place in the headquarters' car park on Thursday, killing a suspected suicide bomber amid other possible casualties, Yushau Shuaib, spokesman of Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), said.
Several vehicles were blown up, sending a thick plume of smoke into the sky, witnesses and local television reports said.
"NEMA has successfully cordoned off the motorpark site of police headquarters where the explosion occurred," an unnamed spokesman for NEMA told the Reuters news agency.
An unnamed Red Cross official also told Reuters that dead bodies were being carried out of the scene, though it is too soon to assess a toll.
"We are evacuating the dead bodies, it is too early for us to judge how many. Our priority is to treat the living casualties right now," a Red Cross spokesman said.
The exact cause of the blast was not immediately clear, but a police spokesman said the Boko Haram - a group that calls for a wider application of Islamic law in Nigeria - is suspected to be responsible for Thursday's blast.
A series of explosions and attacks targeting police and fire service headquarters rocked northeastern Nigeria last week, and the Boko Haram were assumed to have been behind it.
It has warned that it will carry out further attacks across the country if its demands are not met.
Source: Agencies
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