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UN 'shocked' at killing of Somali minister


Saturday, June 11, 2011


Hassan (right) is said to have been killed by his niece (AFP/File, Mustafa Abdi)
NAIROBI (AFP)— The UN Special Representative for Somalia, Augustine Mahiga on Saturday expressed his "shock" at the killing of Somalia's interior minister in a suicide attack perpetrated by a family member.

Mahiga "has expressed his shock over the callous murder of the Interior Minister of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia in an apparent suicide attack in Mogadishu," a statement from Mahiga's office said Saturday.

Abdishakur Sheikh Hassan was killed Friday in a suicide attack at his home, apparently carried out by a niece, a senior security official told AFP.

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"The minister died in hospital," the official Adan Mohamed said. "The information we have so far indicates that a young woman, the minister's niece, carried out the attack."

The information was confirmed by other security sources, who said the woman had stayed at the minister's Mogadishu home for the last three days.

A number of other people were also wounded in the explosion which happened as the minister hosted a meeting with other colleagues, said a second official, Ibrahim Siyad.

The suicide attack was the third in Mogadishu in less than two weeks, all claimed by Islamist Shebab rebels, who are engaged in a protracted battle with the country's weak, Western-backed government for control of the Horn of Africa nation.

Source: AFP

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