Bomber kills 2 at Somali president's villa
2013-01-29 13:57
Mogadishu - A suicide bomber detonated explosives outside
the prime minister's home in Somalia's presidential palace compound, killing
two people, an official said on Tuesday.
The man blew himself up on Tuesday morning when he was
questioned by soldiers manning a checkpoint in the palace complex known as
Villa Somalia, said Mohamed Ali, a police officer at the official residence in
Mogadishu, the capital.
Villa Somalia has a large compound with several buildings
and checkpoints. The bomber was four more checkpoints away from President
Hassan Sheikh Mohamud's home, Ali said. The president is said to be out of the
country on state business.
The checkpoint where the blast took place is near the home
of Prime Minister's Abdi Farah Shirdon which is also in the compound, according
to officials.
Shirdon was at home but was not harmed, according to an
official from the palace who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized
to speak with the press.
Two soldiers died and three others were wounded in the
explosion, said Yusuf Abdi, a military officer at the palace.
Mohamud survived an assassination attempt on his second day
in office in September when two suicide bombers blew themselves up while trying
to gain access into a heavily guarded hotel serving as his temporary residence.
Leadership
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack but it
falls into a pattern of previous attacks blamed on the al-Qaeda-linked rebel
group al-Shabaab. The extremist group has been waging an insurgency against
Somalia's United Nations-backed government.
Mohamud, 56, who was an academic and activist before
becoming president, is expected to form the county's first functioning central
government since 1991, when warlords overthrew longtime dictator Mohamed Siad
Barre.
Since 2004, Somalia has been represented by a UN-approved
leadership structure called the Transitional Federal Government that until
recently only controlled small parts of Mogadishu. That government accomplished
little, but since African Union and Somali troops pushed the al-Shabaab
extremists out of the capital in 2011 and most parts of the country they
occupied in 2012, positive momentum new stability is building.
The international community is supporting Mohamud's
government saying it's a step toward moving the country out of its failed-state
status but that much more remains to be done in a country bloodied by two
decades of war.
In a sign of progress, the United States last week
officially recognized the Somali government for the first time since Barre's
fall 1991.
Mohamud faces an uphill task unifying a fractious country in
the face of the Islamist radicals' insurgency and rebuilding a bombed-out
infrastructure, food security and institutions. Another challenge is fighting
the endemic corruption that plagued previous governments.
- AP
