Car bomb explodes near Nigeria church

(March 12, 2012) A suicide car bomber attacked a Catholic church on Sunday in the middle of Mass, killing at least 10 people in the blast and the retaliatory violence that followed after the latest assault targeting a church in the central Nigerian city of Jos. The bomb detonated as worshippers attended the final Mass of the day at St. Finbar's Catholic Church in the city where thousands have died in the last decade in religious and ethnic violence. The blast damaged the church's roof, blew out its windows and destroyed a portion of the fence surrounding the church's compound. The bombing sparked retaliatory violence in Jos later Sunday, with angry youths burning down homes and soldiers guarding the city opening fire in neighbourhoods, witnesses said. No group immediately claimed responsibility though the city has been targeted in the past by a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram. The sect claimed a series of bombings in Jos on Christmas Eve in 2010, an act that Pope Benedictg XVI has vehemently condemned. New York-based Human Rights Watch says at least 1,000 people were killed in communal clashes around Jos in 2010.