'Bomb threat' curtails Nigeria World Cup viewings Published duration 12 June 2014

image copyright Reuters image caption Nigerians are known to be passionate supporters of their team

Authorities in Nigeria's north-eastern state of Adamawa have ordered all venues planning to screen live coverage of the football World Cup to close.

They say they have received intelligence of planned bomb attacks during the competition, which opens in Brazil on Thursday.

Adamawa is one of the states badly affected by Islamist violence.

Open-air viewing centres - where people pay to watch live football - are popular throughout Nigeria.

"Our action is not to stop Nigerians... watching the World Cup. It is to protect their lives," Brig-Gen Nicholas Rogers was quoted by the AFP agency as saying on Wednesday in Yola, the capital of Adamawa.

Earlier this month, the US embassy in Uganda urged people to exercise caution when attending venues that may attract large crowds during the World Cup, saying there was a continued threat of terror attacks in the East Africa nation.

Somali Islamists bombed two restaurants in Kampala which were showing the World Cup final four years ago, killing more than 70 people.

Africa's star performers?

North-eastern Adamawa state has often been targeted by Boko Haram Islamist militants.

On 1 June at least 14 people were killed in a bomb attack on a bar that was screening a televised football match in Adamawa. No group claimed responsibility for the blast, but Boko Haram were the main suspects.

The state is one of three in Nigeria that have been placed under emergency rule because of the Boko Haram insurgency.

image copyright AFP image caption Outdoor public viewing centres for watching football are popular across Nigeria

Many people were also killed in two explosions blamed on Boko Haram while watching football in a video hall in the north-eastern town of Maiduguri in March.

Correspondents say many fans have no means other than the viewing centres to watch the Nigerian team - or Super Eagles - in action.

The team is tipped by pundits to be one of Africa's star performers at the World Cup.

Boko Haram has come under the international spotlight after it recently abducted more than 200 girls from a school in northern Nigeria.

Efforts to locate the girls have so far drawn a blank.

On Thursday the British government is due to host a ministerial meeting in London about northern Nigeria's security, following on from a summit in Paris last month in which the best ways to subdue the Boko Haram militant group were discussed.

The Nigerian team's first World Cup match in Brazil is against Iran on 16 June.

They then play Bosnia-Hercegovina and finish their Group F campaign against Argentina as they attempt to reach the last 16, as they did in 1994 and 1998.

Who are Boko Haram?

image copyright AFP image caption Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has been designated a terrorist by the US government

Founded in 2002

Initially focused on opposing Western education - Boko Haram means "Western education is forbidden" in the Hausa language

Launched military operations in 2009 to create Islamic state

Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria - also attacked police and UN headquarters in capital, Abuja

Some three million people affected

Declared terrorist group by US in 2013