The United States has warned its citizens of a plan to attack one of two Sheraton hotels near Lagos, Nigeria's main commercial hub which attracts many foreign business people and which so far has been spared by the country's violent Islamist militants, according to the Associated Press.
In a statement on its website, the State Department said those behind the plot were "groups associated with terrorism", but gave no further details, the AP reported.
Nigeria is grappling with an increasingly violent Islamist insurgency that has killed thousands in the past five years, according to the AP.
Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which is fighting to carve an Islamic state out of religiously mixed Nigeria, is still mostly confined to the northeast, although it has struck across the north and in Nigeria's capital, the AP reported.
The group has never attacked Lagos, a sprawling city of 21 million people, although its leader Abubakar Shekau has threatened to do so, according to the AP.
"As of late April, groups associated with terrorism allegedly planned to mount an unspecified attack against the Sheraton Hotel in Nigeria, near the city of Lagos," the State Department said late on Friday, the AP reported.
"There was no further information regarding which of the two Sheraton Hotels in Lagos was the possible target ... There is no further information regarding the timing or method of attack," according to the AP. It cautioned U.S. citizens to avoid the hotels.
Lagos is more frequently visited by foreign business people than Abuja, the seat of Nigeria's government, although oil executives often visit the capital to cut deals, the AP reported.
The Abuja bombs, along with the abduction of 200 girls from a school near the Cameroon border, may overshadow the WEF conference which President Goodluck Jonathan's administration has pledged to protect with 6,000 troops, according to the AP.
