Monday, May 07, 2007
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MOGADISHU (AFP) - Two children died and seven people were wounded Monday when a bomb exploded under a police car near the presidential palace in Somalia's volatile capital Mogadishu, police and witnesses said. The attack came just hours after Somali troops, backed by Ethiopian forces, cracked down on arms dealers near the scene of the blast.
The police car exploded near the Villa Somalia presidential palace in southern Mogadishu, police and witnesses said, prompting security forces to seal off surrounding areas and fire into the air.
"Two children who were playing nearby were killed by the bomb. One died instantly and the other died in hospital," said local resident Farah Darod.
"The bomb hit a police car somewhere not too far from the presidential palace and four policemen were wounded," police officer Ibrahim Mohamed said.
A southern Mogadishu resident, Mohamed Ali, said that three civilians were also hit by shrapnel.
Officials confirmed that the vehicle belonged to regional police chief Ali Said, and that he was not in it when it was attacked.
The blast occurred after Ethiopian forces raided the Bakara market, the city's largest, and seized two truckloads of weapons, causing local arms dealers to flee their stalls.
"Ethiopian and Somali military ... surrounded and entered the market, broke several stores, collected guns and loaded them into trucks," arms dealer Dahir Faqash said. "The weapons included heavy and small machine guns," Faqash added.
Another arms dealer, Suleyman Adbi Barra, said that the soldiers ransacked the market - which also sells clothes, spare parts, and foreign currencies - for around 45 minutes before loading the weapons into military vehicles.
Ethiopian-Somali troops drove out an Islamist movement from central and southern Somalia, including Mogadishu, at the start of the year.
The city has since seen an upsurge in deadly clashes between Ethiopian forces and Islamist insurgents and clan fighters opposed to their presence but the fighting has abated since April 26.
Efforts to disarm civilians have failed due to their reluctance to hand over weapons to an interim government largely seen as ineffective and unable to guarantee security.
Source: AFP, May 07, 2007