Sunday, June 03, 2007
A Toyota Land Cruiser exploded in front of the home of Somalia's prime minister Sunday. |
A Toyota Land Cruiser loaded with explosives crashed through the security gate of the prime minister's Mogadishu home and exploded, killing six guards and damaging the house that also serves as the prime minister's office, spokesman Abdullahi Odka said.
He said the prime minister was at home at the time, but he was unhurt.
An African Union spokesman said Gedi was taken from the residence to an undisclosed location.
Odka said he believed it was the biggest explosion in Mogadishu to date.
"I saw limbs nearly a kilometer from where the suicide bomber detonated," a police officer at the scene, who asked not to be named, told Reuters by telephone.
Prime Minister Gedi has survived two previous assassination attempts using bombs in recent years.
His interim administration is struggling to impose its authority on the anarchic Horn of Africa nation.
Near daily attacks on government troops and their Ethiopian military allies are blamed on members of a defeated Islamist movement who have vowed to wage an "Iraq-style" insurgency.
On Friday, a U.S. warship fired missiles at one group of foreign fighters in the remote mountains of northern Somalia.
On Sunday, the region's finance minister said six Islamists -- from America, Britain, Sweden, Morocco, Pakistan and Yemen -- had been killed in the air strikes and in gunbattles with local forces. (Full story)
Source: CNN, June 03, 2007