20110706
Reuters
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) - A heavy explosion followed by bursts of sporadic gunfire hit the northeastern Nigerian town of Maiduguri on Wednesday, where a militant Islamist sect has been waging a campaign of violence.

The blast, which appeared to come from the centre of the town, shattered windows in surrounding neighbourhoods shortly after 7 am (0600 GMT) and was followed by sporadic bursts of automatic gunfire, a Reuters witness and local residents said.

"People ran out to see where this thing had happened. There were huge plumes of smoke which seemed to be coming from the Abbaganaram neighbourhood," one of the witnesses said.

Soldiers blocked some roads into the centre of the town, the capital of the remote northeastern state of Borno, and residents who had set off for work turned back.

Radical sect Boko Haram, which says it wants a wider application of sharia Islamic law across Africa's most populous nation, has carried out a string of assassinations, shootings and attacks with home-made explosives in recent months.

Most of the violence has been around Maiduguri, where more than 150 people have been killed since the start of the year, but the group has also struck further afield, including a bomb outside the national police headquarters in Abuja last month.

Bomb blasts in the north have replaced militant attacks on oil facilities hundreds of kilometres away in the southern Niger Delta as the main security threat in Nigeria. The United States and European Union have condemned the violence.

Nigeria's State Security Service (SSS) said on Monday it had arrested more than 100 suspected members of Boko Haram and had foiled a spate of attempted bombings in the past month and a half.

President Goodluck Jonathan, who was sworn in for his first full term in office in late May, has voiced support for dialogue but the group has said it will only negotiate if demands including the resignation of the Borno state government are met.