Boko Haram Claim Responsibility For Lagos Explosion

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has claimed responsibility for two explosions on June 25 at a fuel depot in Lagos, Nigeria's commercial hub, in a video seen by Reuters on Sunday, which if true would be the militants' first recorded attack on the city.

"A bomb went off in Lagos. I ordered (the bomber) who went and detonated it," Shekau said.

The two blasts minutes apart last month in the main port of Apapa were almost certainly caused by bombs, three senior security sources and the manager of a major container company told Reuters. One was most likely the work of a female suicide bomber, they said.

Authorities said the blasts on Creek Road were an accident caused by a gas canister, but the security sources told Reuters that was a cover-up meant to prevent panic in the city of 21 million people. At least two people were killed.

Shekau also claimed a bomb in a shopping mall in Abuja's upmarket Wuse II district that killed 24 people, the third in the capital since April and among a growing body of evidence that its attacks are spreading southwards.