US Embassy Warns Its Citizens About Possible Attacks In 3 Hotels In Nigeria

The U.S. Embassy has warned its citizens that three luxury hotels in Nigeria's oil-rich capital, Abuja, may be the next target of a radical Muslim sect known as Boko Haram, responsible for last week's attacks that have killed 100.

The death toll from attacks by the radical Muslim sect recently rose to more than 100 on Sunday, and the United States Embassy warned that the sect might be preparing to bomb three luxury hotels frequented by foreigners in Abuja, the capital.

The unusually specific warning from American diplomats identified the Hilton, Nicon Luxury and Sheraton hotels, whose guests include diplomats, politicians and Nigeria's business elite, as possible targets of the sect, known as Boko Haram.

Boko Haram's attacks have killed more than 100 people.

The embassy said its diplomats and staff had been instructed to avoid the three hotels, but an embassy spokeswoman, Deb MacLean, would not provide any details about the threat or its source.

A Nigerian Red Cross official, Ibrahim Bulama, said he expected the number of dead in northeastern Nigeria to rise as clinics and hospitals counted the casualties from the attacks on Friday in Damaturu, the capital of rural Yobe State.

Damaturu remained calm on Sunday as Muslim residents celebrated Id al-Adha, the feast of sacrifice, when Muslims slaughter sheep and cattle in remembrance of Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son. Army and police units were on duty at roadblocks leading into the city, Mr. Bulama said.
Sunday in the sect's spiritual home, Maiduguri, about 80 miles east of Damaturu, according to the local police commissioner, Simeon Midenda. The attackers stopped the inspector's car at gunpoint as he neared a mosque to pray with his family, ordered his relatives away, then shot the inspector to death, Mr. Midenda said. The sect later allowed the inspector's family to drive the car away, he said.

"Our men who live in the midst of the Boko Haram are not safe," Mr. Midenda said.

Boko Haram wants to put strict Shariah law in place across Nigeria, an oil-rich nation of more than 160 million people that has a predominantly Christian south and a Muslim north. The sect's name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, and it rejects Nigeria's democratic process, which is similar to that in the United States. Boko Haram says democracy has created corrupt leaders who have destroyed the country.

The United Nations Security Council issued a statement late Saturday calling the bombings and shootings in Damaturu and Maiduguri "criminal and unjustifiable" and asked its member nations to help the Nigerian authorities bring those responsible to justice. Boko Haram has claimed responsibility for the violence.

A statement on behalf of the United Nations' secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, called for "an end to all violence in the area," and he offered sympathy for the victims.

Pope Benedict XVI told tourists in St. Peter's Square on Sunday that he was following the news from Nigeria with apprehension. The pope appealed for an end to the violence, saying it only increased problems and sowed hatred and division even among the faithful.