ATTEMPTS to stage another bomb attack by yet to be identified gunmen was foiled in Bauchi on Friday, a week after similar attacks on targeted local banks and police posts in the same state.
Bauchi State Police Commisioner Ikechukwu Aduba confirmed to journalists that criminals had targeted the Ganjuwa local government secretariat and a police station at about 1pm with locally made bombs and rocket launchers but were repelled by detachments of special anti-robbery squads who were called in to the scene.
Only last Saturday, a similar attack was staged at a police station and local banks in the town Azare, in Katagum Local Government area of the state.
No casualities were recorded in the lastest incident.
The police commissioner stated that the gunmen left behind two Volkswagen Golf cars, five undetonated locally made bombs, nine rounds of live ammunition and N600,000 in cash.
Commissioner Aduba appealed to community leaders, vigilance groups and the general public to continue to assist the police with useful information to complement their effort of protecting the lives and property of the people of the state.
He also urged the general public in the state not to panic, assuring that the command was always ready to confront miscreants.
In another development, the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union (AU) Commission yesterday listed Boko Haram, Al-Qa’ida Al-Shabaab and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) as the major terrorist groups in Africa.
A communiqué issued in Addis Ababa after the Council’s meeting said the terrorist threat in Africa continued to be shaped by the activities of Al Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Al Shabaab al Mujahideen, Boko Haram, and the LRA, the News Agency of Nigeria. (NAN) reports.
The communiqué said that the terrorist groups were operating in different countries as Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al-Qa’ida Al-Shabaab in Somalia and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda.
The communiqué added that troubling trends have emerged with the increased level of activity of the groups over the past months, particularly in relation to growing links between some of them as well as their involvement in various other forms of crime.
The communiqué reads in part: “These attacks resulted in numerous casualties and injuries. The bombing of the UN Office in Abuja marked the group’s first attack against an international target and the group claimed responsibility for the assassination of a number of policemen, clerics and politicians’’. “In an effort to bring the activities of all the terrorists groups operating in Africa, the 249th meeting of the Council encouraged the Commission to elaborate an African arrest warrant for persons charged with any terrorist act.
“The commission is currently engaged with the UN and other partners to develop the framework and procedures for an African Arrest Warrant.
Despite all the efforts being made, there is an urgent need for sufficient coordination among the relevant regional continental and UN institutions within and between member states”.
It added that better institutional interaction could be achieved through the establishment of national and regional coordinating structures for terrorism and organised crime in the form of Fusion Centres which encompass the different countries in each region.
It called on member states to devote resources and establish institutions that would address issues of terrorism, as well as the imperative of upholding the rule of law and protecting human rights in the fight against terrorism.