MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By AHMED SAKA – “JOS, Nigeria (AP) — A suicide car bomber detonated his explosives outside a major church Sunday, killing three people and wounding 38 others in a restive central Nigerian city that has seen hundreds die in religious and ethnic violence.

The explosion struck the main headquarters of the Church of Christ in Nigeria during its early morning service, Plateau state spokesman Pam Ayuba said. The attack killed a woman, and a father and his child near the explosion, Ayuba said.

The bomber apparently ran down the woman while racing his car toward the church compound, said Mark Lipdo, a coordinator for a Christian group called the Stefanos Foundation. The blast left shattered glass all over the church compound, as an angry crowd of youths began smashing the windows of cars passing by the scene, witnesses said.

Emergency officials took 38 people to hospitals for treatment, said Yushau Shuaib, a spokesman with Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency.

In a statement, President Goodluck Jonathan condemned the attack.

‘Those who seek to divide us by fear and terror will not succeed,’ the statement read. ‘The indiscriminate bombing of Christians and Muslims is a threat to all peace-loving Nigerians.’

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, though a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram has launched increasingly bloody attacks across Nigeria, including attacks on churches. A Christmas Day bombing of a Catholic church that left at least 44 dead was claimed by the sect in Madalla, a town just outside the country’s capital of Abuja.

The group also claimed responsibility for bomb attacks on Christmas Eve that struck Jos, killing as many as 80 people.” Read more.