By SALAD DUHUL
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The bomb went off as the first of 15 vehicles in the convoy passed, said Mohamed Abdulle Siidi, a staff member in the prime minister's office.
The other 14 cars then passed, including the vehicle carrying the prime minister, and soldiers from the first car got out but found no one in the vicinity, Siidi said.
Government spokesman Abdi Haji Gobdon said, however, that police arrested one person at the scene, and that another ran away. There was no immediate explanation for the conflicting reports.
Initial police investigations indicated the bomb was thrown at the convoy, Gobdon said, but he declined to specify if the device had been a grenade.
There have been at least two attempts on Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi's life since he returned to Somalia in May 2005. The last attempt was in November 2005, when gunmen threw grenades and a land mine exploded near his convoy, killing at least five bodyguards and wounding several others.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attacks.
On Wednesday, a roadside bomb struck a convoy carrying African Union peacekeepers, killing four.
The attack followed the Somali government's declared victory over Islamic insurgents who have vowed to launch an Iraq-style guerrilla war unless the country becomes an Islamic state.
Uganda has about 1,400 troops in Somalia, officially as the vanguard of a larger AU peacekeeping force, though so far no other countries have sent reinforcements.
The most recent fighting in the capital, between March 12 and April 26, killed at least 1,670 people and forced 400,000 to flee. The battles pitted the government and its Ethiopian allies against clan rivals and Islamic insurgents.
Source: AP, May 17, 2007