Kano Airtel Office attacked by Suicide Bomber; Four feared dead

Reports say that a suicide bomber, Saturday, attacked telecom provider, Airtel’s office in Kano. The office is located within the Business District, opposite Malam Kato Square in the metropolis.

It is not immediately clear how the bomber gained entry into the heavily fortified Airtel headquarters that has been under the protection of combat-ready JTF officials.

Thought casualty figure is sketchy, but report says the multi-million naira headquarters is still in flames.

Efforts made to reach the JTF spokesman, Captain Ikediche Iweha, were unsuccessful as he did not respond to calls to his phone.

UPDATE: A suicide bomber drove a rigged car into the Airtel offices in  Mallam Kato Square in Kano before exploding early morning today in Kano.

A second explosion believed to be an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) also exploded at an MTN phone switch center in Mai Mailari area of Kano metropolis a few kilometers apart. We could not confirm any casualty as at the time of publishing this report.

UPDATE: The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has confirmed  the attacks on telecom masts belonging to Airtel and MTN in Kano but says there are no immediate records of human casualty.

UPDATE: The commercial city of Kano was ,Saturday morning, enmeshed in coordinated attacks as suicide bombers hit the city, targeting telecom facilities.

Its been gathered that barely an hour after a  suicide bomber struck at Airtel office in Kano, telecom service provider MTN lost its interswitch office to another suicide bombing.

The Interswitch office located along Independent way, Bompai Industrial estate went off in flames, as there are fears of heavy casualties,  as the facility is said to be manned by a team of engineers who run shifts.

Unconfirmed reports say four persons are feared dead in the both suicide attacks, as it is not however clear the reason for  targeting the service providers and  if there are other institutions under fire as at the time of this report.

JTF spokesman in the city, Captain Ikediche Iweha said that “some criminals want to unsettle everybody but we are in control of the situation.”

However, there is security alert  in the city with the emergence of more check points, especially in vulnerable areas where there are high concentration of churches.

Details shortly.