Bomb blast in Jos

CASHES left at least one person dead and a number of houses burned in the Nigerian city of Jos yesterday amid tensions following a series of Christmas Eve bomb attacks that killed dozens.

Soldiers patrolled the streets of the city in central Nigeria and authorities sought to keep the violence from further spreading after Friday's bombs that claimed at least 32 lives.
Previous outbreaks of violence between Christian and Muslim ethnic groups have killed hundreds, and the bomb blasts added a worrying new dimension to the unrest a few months ahead of elections.
"There were some skirmishes between the two groups and it's under control now," state police commissioner Abdulrahman Akano told Agence France Presse. "One or two houses were burnt."
Asked about deaths, he said: "We have seen only one - one person."
An Agence France Presse correspondent said at least two houses burned and heavy smoke was coming from another area of the city. He also said crowds ran through the streets earlier in the day, with some claiming people had been killed.
The commissioner said the two groups involved in the clashes were "the locals and the so-called settlers".
Christians from the Berom ethnic group are typically referred to as the indigenes in the region, while Hausa-Fulani Muslims are seen as the more recent arrivals.
Many attribute unrest in the region to the struggle for political and economic power between the groups.
A spokesman for the governor of Plateau state, where Jos is the capital, said authorities were deployed to control youths earlier on Sunday, but he could not say what had occurred.
"There was tension in certain parts of the town where the bombs exploded," said the spokesman, James Mannok. "What I heard was that the youths there are still agitated. The security agencies are controlling them.
"There were some actions, but I cannot define what actions took place."
Mannok said the governor, Jonah David Jang, had encouraged youths in the city to be on the lookout and assist authorities in spotting suspicious activity.
He stressed that the governor was not encouraging them to use violence, but only to report incidents to authorities.
"They are to be watchful and report accordingly to security agencies," said Mannok. "He did not say that anybody should use weapons."
At least 32 people were killed and 74 wounded in seven explosions in two different areas of Jos on Friday evening, with many of the victims doing their Christmas shopping at the time. A church was also targeted, the governor has said.
On the same night, suspected members of an Islamist sect that launched an uprising last year attacked three churches in northern Nigeria, leaving six people dead and one of the churches burnt.
There was no immediate indication the incidents in the vast country's north and central regions were linked.
Army Chief of Staff Azubuike Ihejirika told reporters in the southern oil city of Port Harcourt that the bomb blasts amounted to "terrorism".
He said the use of bombs has "a terrorist dimension to it" and called for intelligence efforts to be intensified, local media reported.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan pledged that those behind the bombings would be hunted down and brought to justice.
A heavy deployment of soldiers could be seen in the streets of Jos on Sunday, and troops were stopping and searching cars.
The city is in the so-called middle-belt region between the predominantly Muslim north and the mainly Christian south and has long been a hot-spot of ethnic and religious friction in Nigeria.
Local rights groups say 1500 people have died in inter-communal violence in the Jos region this year alone.
"The aim of the mastermind is to pit Christians against Muslims and spark off another round of violence that will eventually culminate in the scuttling of the ongoing electioneering activities," the state governor said.
Observers have warned of an increase in violence in the run up to the April elections.
Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation and one of the world's largest oil producers, faces tremendous challenges in organising the vote and is seeking to overcome a history of ballot fraud and violence.
Pope Benedict XVI deplored on Sunday the "absurd violence" against Christians after the attacks on churches in Nigeria and in the Philippines over the Christmas holiday.