ABUJA (AFP) ? A powerful bomb blew up inside the Nigerian police headquarters on Thursday, killing a suspected suicide bomber and wounding several bystanders, witnesses and officials said.
The blast tore into a police car park at the compound in the capital Abuja, throwing people to the ground and destroying several vehicles, they said.
If confirmed as a suicide blast, it would be the first such bombing in Nigeria as it faces a growing threat from Islamic militants, a security expert told AFP.
"The police force headquarters has been bombed, everywhere is bombed," deputy national police spokesman Yemi Ajayi told AFP by telephone soon after the explosion.
"A suspected suicide bomber died in the incident. Many vehicles were destroyed," emergency services spokesman Yushau Shuaib said.
An AFP correspondent saw a chunk of human flesh on the ground of car park where more than 20 cars were completely burnt.
At least five people were admitted to hospital for wounds and two had been treated at the scene and sent home, Red Cross aid workers said.
A man in an apartment opposite the compound said he saw from his balcony a few blood-stained people on the ground. He was unable to tell if they were dead or not.
There were several powerful blasts, he said on condition of anonymity.
"There was a loud bang, my whole house shook as if the roof was about to come down. Then there was another blast. I heard four blasts," he said.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but it follows scores of others blamed on Islamic militants known as the Nigerian Taliban.
Another emergency services spokesman said the bomb was planted in a car in the parking lot.
Roads leading to the attack site were cordoned off at least a kilometre away as a thick plume of smoke rose from the area.
The police headquarters is situated less than a kilometre from the presidential offices and residence.
The explosion is the latest in a series of blasts to hit the capital since October last year.
The first was near the venue of Independence Day festivities on October 1 that killed 12 people.
On New Year's Eve blasts at a beer garden left several dead, and more were killed in a spate of bombings around the swearing into office of President Goodluck Jonathan outside Abuja about two weeks ago.
Thursday's bombing came a day after the Islamist Boko Haram sect threatened "fiercer" attacks and it would not enter into talks with the government, which it had earlier called for.
It said it was angered by a police declaration that "the days of Boko Haram are numbered".
"Very soon, we will wage jihad ...," the group said in a handwritten statement.
The sect admitted links with a foreign Islamist group connected to Al-Qaeda, although security experts had already speculated that it had established ties with Islamists in north Africa.
Also known as the Nigerian Taliban, the group launched an uprising in 2009 which was put down by a brutal military assault that left hundreds dead.
It has pushed for the creation of an Islamic state and been blamed for shootings of police and community leaders, bomb blasts and raids on churches, police stations and a prison.
Jonathan last week told reporters in New York that he would support attempts to talk to the Islamic militants in Nigeria's predominately Muslim north to end months of deadly unrest in this region of Africa's most populous country.
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