Car bomb in north Nigerian city of Kano kills 4

Security officers inspect a damaged car following a car bomb explosion in Abuja, Nigeria, Friday, May 2, 2014. The death toll from a car bomb that exploded on a busy road in Nigeria’s capital rose to more than a dozen overnight with dozens of people wounded, police said Friday from the city that within days hosts an international conference. The bomb was driven near a checkpoint where traffic built up, right across the road from a busy bus station where a massive explosion on April 14 killed dozens of people. AP

KANO, Nigeria— A car bomb exploded in the Christian neighborhood of Nigeria’s second most populous and mainly Muslim city of Kano on Sunday night, killing at least four people, police said. Five people were wounded.

Police Superintendent Aderenle Shinaba said the car exploded Sunday night before the bomber reached his target of the busy restaurants and bars lining Gold Coast Street, indicating the casualties could have been much higher. It was unclear if the bomber was among them.

The Sabon Gari Christian quarter is a popular area where people dine, play games, dance and drink alcohol late into the night — all anathema to the Islamic extremists blamed for previous attacks in the neighborhood.

Multiple blasts in Sabon Gari — the name means “Strangers’ Quarters” in the Hausa language — killed at least 24 people in last July and a suicide bomber drove a car laden with explosives into the neighborhood’s bustling bus station in March 2013, killing at least 25 people.

Alcohol is forbidden under Shariah law that holds in the largely Muslim city but authorities generally turn a blind eye to the Christian neighborhood and hotels.

Previous explosions have been blamed on the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram that claimed responsibility for two explosions last month in Abuja, the capital in the center of the country, that killed more than 120 people and wounded more than 200.

World attention turned on the group with its mass abduction a month ago of 276 schoolgirls whom it is threatening to sell into slavery if the government does not release detained militants. Officials say Nigeria will not swap the girls for detainees. Several countries including the United States, France and Britain have sent military experts in surveillance, intelligence gathering and hostage negotiation to help bring the girls back home.

Nigeria’s 5-year-old Islamic uprising has killed thousands with attacks increasing in frequency and deadliness this year despite a year-old state of emergency. More than 1,500 civilians have been killed in the uprising so far this year.

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