Monday, June 04, 2007
Ethiopian and Somali forces killed three civilians and wounded five others after a failed hand grenade attack, and police killed two civilians after two police officers were shot dead, witnesses said.
Meanwhile an Islamist website posted pictures of a man who allegedly carried out the suicide attack on the prime minister.
The grenade attack was the second failed strike today on Ethiopian-Somali troops in the northern district of Huriwa.
'Immediately after the grenade was thrown at the Ethiopian-Somali convoy, they opened heavy fire in the direction it came from,' witness Ahmed Ismail told Agence France-Presse.
Government and United Nations officials, African Union peacekeeping troops and Ethiopian soldiers have been targeted in a growing number of Iraq-style homemade bomb and suicide attacks, mainly in the capital.
Prime Minister Gedi, whose interim government is struggling to control the anarchic Horn of Africa nation, blamed the attack on Al-Qaeda.
'The terrorists are still hiding in the country, particularly in Mogadishu, to carry out violent actions like this. We will crack down on them and we will no longer give them a chance to hide in the community,' Gedi told journalists at his compound today.
The attacks followed a deadly weekend assault in northeastern Somalia by security forces and a US warship against Islamist extremists with suspected links to Al-Qaeda.
Source: Thomson Financial, June 04, 2007