DAMATURU, NIGERIA—Survivors of a bomb blast at an illegal World Cup viewing site in northeast Nigeria that killed at least 14 people said Wednesday the force of the explosion blew off limbs and knocked people senseless.

Unrelated to the attack, police said security forces arrested nearly 500 people, including a “terror kingpin” in the southeast of the country.

At least 26 people were wounded in Tuesday night’s blast as soccer fans were viewing the Brazil-Mexico match in Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state, police said.

“The bomb just threw me and I didn’t even know where I was,” survivor Babagana Mohammed said. He recovered consciousness in the hospital.

Another wounded victim, Musa Mohammed, said some people lost limbs in the blast.

Witnesses said a suicide bomber drove a tricycle taxi packed with explosives into the area. But Police Assistant Superintendent Nathan Cheghan said the explosion came from a car parked and abandoned on the road in front.

Cheghan said such viewing sites were banned in Yobe state two months ago because they have become a target of Boko Haram, an armed Islamic group that wants to turn Nigerian into an Islamic state.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but he blamed Boko Haram.

The government spokesman on the insurgency, Mike Omeri, said Wednesday that Boko Haram plans to attack crowded areas in Abuja, the capital in the centre of the country, with tankers loaded with improvised explosive devices. Omeri spoke at a daily news briefing. Two separate car bombs in April killed about 100 people in Abuja.

Security experts had warned that Islamic militants might attack crowds watching the World Cup in public places in Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda, as they did in 2010 in Uganda. The explosions in Kampala, Uganda, at two sites where people watched the 2010 World Cup final on TV killed 74 people. Al Shabab, a Somali insurgent group, set off those bombs.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defence said it has detained “a terror kingpin in the list of wanted terrorists.”

A statement Tuesday night said he was found among 486 suspects arrested while travelling at night in a suspicious convoy of 33 buses in southeast Enugu state.

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