- Somalia's security minister Omar Hashi Aden killed in the Suicide bombing
- Somalia's former ambassador to Ethiopia and AU, Abdulkarim Ibrahim Lakanyo, also killed.
(AFP) — Somalia's security minister was among 20 people killed Thursday in a suicide bombing that the country's leaders have blamed on Al-Qaeda affiliated insurgents. The blast which ripped through a hotel in Beledweyne, near the Ethiopian border, killed minister Omar Hashi Aden and 19 others, including several government officials among his entourage, officials said.
The assassination followed a day of fierce clashes on Wednesday between Islamist insurgents and government forces that killed at least 26 people in Mogadishu, including the capital's police commander.
The hardline Islamic Shebab said one of its "holy warriors" had carried out the suicide attack.
"One of our Mujahedeens went with his car laden with explosives to a building where the apostate and other members from his group had been meeting," Shebab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Rage told reporters in Mogadishu. "The apostates have been eliminated, they all died in the suicide attack," he added.
In neighbouring Kenya, Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Sharmarke condemned "a cowardly act carried out by terrorists affiliated to Al-Qaeda."
"Somalis have no expertise to carry out this attack, this was the work of foreigners," he said, calling for international aid to shore up government forces.
The head of the pro-government Islamic Courts militia, Ibrahim Maow, told reporters in Beledweyne that Somalia's former ambassador to Ethiopia, Abdulkarim Ibrahim Lakanyo, was among the dead. READ FULL REPORT: AFP
- Somalia's president says al-Qaida is behind attack
(AP) Somalia's president says al-Qaida is behind a suicide bombing that killed the national security minister in a western Somali town. Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed says a senior Somali diplomat also died in Thursday's attack in Belet Weyne that killed at least 20 people.
"It was an act of terrorism and it is part of the terrorist attack on our people," Ahmed said. "Al-Qaida is attacking us." READ FULL REPORT: AP
- UN condemns the suicide attack
The United Nations on Thursday issued a joint statement with African, European and Middle East regional organizations to "strongly condemn" suicide car bombing in western Somalia which killed at least 20 people including the Somali national security minister. READ FULL REPORT
- "THIS IS A DISASTER"
"I saw pools of blood with at least 15 people's bodies cut in pieces by the explosives," said Abdulle, a witness using only one name out of fear of retribution. Some estimates placed the number of dead above 20. "This is a disaster," he added, "may Allah save us from such a disaster."
In a news conference Thursday, the president of the transitional federal government, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, confirmed the death of the security minister and the former ambassador, Abdirakim Farah Laqanyo — and blamed Al Qaeda for it.
"This country has been invaded by foreign jihadists in the name of the religion," he said. "I know they daily come to Somalia and their aim is only to kill, but nothing else." READ FULL REPORT: NEW YORK TIMES
RELATED LINKS
- "HAPPY NEW MILLENNIUM TO ALL ETHIOPIANS" (Somalia Ambassador Abdikarin Laqanyo/2007)
Jimma Times
1 comment:
Who was the inventor of "suicide bombers"? In other words, who was the marketing genius that created the technology of convincing usually ignorant or profoundly disturbed individuals to perform such barbarian acts that not even barbarians would perform? There are, obviously, by far more questions than answers but it would be interesting to know if any other religion apart from Islam produced such specimen.
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