Car bombing at north Nigeria church kills 15

(June 04, 2012) A suicide car bomber drove into a church compound in northern Nigeria on Sunday and detonated his explosives as worshippers left an early morning service, killing at least 15 people and injuring more than 30, according to officials and witnesses. The bomber targeted the Living Faith church, in a neighbourhood near the airport in Bauchi. Bauchi state police commissioner Mohammed Ladan said security personnel stationed near the church compound stopped the car from getting any closer to worshippers than it did. The powerful blast from the car destroyed part of the Living Faith Church, sending walls of the building crashing down on worshippers still inside. Others suffered burns in the blast. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack, though the attack comes as Nigeria faces a growing wave of sectarian violence carried out by a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram, a name meaning ``Western education is sacrilege''. The group has been blamed for killing more than 530 people this year alone, according to an Associated Press count. The sect's targets have included churches, often attacked by suicide car bombers. Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million people, is split between a largely Muslim north and Christian south.