By Aweys Yusuf
Sunday, February 17, 2008

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Somali President Abdullahi Yusuf escaped unhurt from a mortar attack by Islamist insurgents on his official residence in Mogadishu, his spokesman said.

The interim government and its Ethiopian allies are battling gunmen loyal to an Islamist movement that ruled Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia for six months in 2006 before being ousted by the allied forces.

"The president was at the palace when several mortars landed near the house. The president is safe," said spokesman Hussein Mohamud Hubsired.

"Al-Shabab, which is linked to al Qaeda, was responsible for this attack targeting the president," he told Reuters.

Al-Shabab, which opposes the presence of foreign troops on Somali soil, has been waging an Iraq-style insurgency.

The attack took place hours after Yusuf arrived in the coastal capital from a trip abroad for medical treatment.

The 73-year-old, who had a liver transplant nearly 14 years ago, left Somalia on January 4, a month after a chest illness sparked a health scare.

Spokesman Hubsired said Yusuf's main priority was to "hasten the government's works" and to continue reconciliation efforts to establish lasting peace.

A local human rights group said on Saturday that nearly 292 civilians were killed and 385 wounded in Mogadishu last month alone.

The chairman of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Organisation, Sudan Ali Ahmed, estimated that 2 million Somalis had fled their homes in the capital since January 2007.

Insurgents have carried out bombings and grenade attacks, drawing retaliatory gunfire from allied Somali-Ethiopian troops.

The United Nations says Somalia is the world's most pressing humanitarian crisis.

Ahmed, speaking to Reuters, accused the international community of paying no attention to abuses in the Horn of Africa country, which spiralled into chaos when warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

"We can call what is happening in Somalia genocide. The international community ignores the human rights breaches in the country," Ahmed said by telephone.

"The world should focus on Somalia more because the population is more vulnerable than ever before and all war crimes in the country must be tried in an international criminal court."

Source: Reuters, Feb 17, 2008