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By Abdi Guled
Saturday, January 24, 2009
MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A suicide car bomb aimed at African Union (AU) peacekeepers in the Somali capital missed its target and killed 13 civilians and a policeman Saturday.
Islamist insurgents have been battling the country's Western-backed interim government since the start of 2007, and have stepped up attacks since the administration's Ethiopian military allies withdrew from Mogadishu this month.
Abdifatah Shaweye, the city's deputy governor, told Reuters that policemen stationed near an AU base opened fire on the bomb-laden car as it approached, after which it crashed and blew up. Thirteen civilians and a policeman were killed, he said.
"I could see smoke rising near the AU base," witness Abbas Farah said. At least 30 people were wounded, doctors said.
The spokesman for the small AU force AMISIOM, Major Barigye Ba-hoku, said no peacekeepers had been hurt. "That opposition group has massacred only innocent Somali people," he said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
Some analysts fear the Ethiopian withdrawal has left a power vacuum that will be exploited by hardline Islamists from the al Shabaab group, which Washington says is linked to al Qaeda.
The international community is putting pressure on Somali politicians meeting in neighbouring Djibouti this week to form an inclusive government with the main Islamist opposition party and elect a new president next week
The U.N. envoy to the country told Reuters it was time for the feuding legislators to ditch the concept of winner takes all and seek compromise to end nearly 20 years of war.
The interim government and its Ethiopian military backers have failed to bring stability to the volatile Horn of Africa nation, where more than 16,000 people have been killed in the past two years and 1 million others driven from their homes.
(Additional reporting by Ibrahim Mohamed and Abdi Sheikh; Writing by Daniel Wallis; editing by Michael Roddy).
Source: Reuters, Jan 24, 2009