A bomb blast ripped through the United Nations offices in the Nigerian capital of Abuja on Friday, August 26, as a car rammed into the building, and witnesses said they had seen a number of dead bodies being carried from the site.

"We have had 10 dead and there could be more," said a medical official who declined to give his name.

One security source in Abuja said he suspected an attack either by Boko Haram, a Nigerian radical Islamist sect, or the North African arm of al Qaeda. Boko Haram's attacks are growing in intensity and spreading further afield.

The UN building was blacked from top to bottom and the remains of a car had fallen into the basement. Soldiers, firefighters and rescue workers swarmed over the area, Reuters reported.