MOGADISHU, Somalia — A suicide bombing in western Somalia killed at least 20 people today including the national security minister. The Somali president blamed al-Qaida while an extremist group with alleged links to the terror network claimed responsibility.
Witness Mohamed Nur said a small car headed toward the gate of the Medina Hotel in Belet Weyne, then drove into vehicles leaving the hotel and exploded.
Information Minister Farhan Ali Mohamud announced the death of National Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden but declined to give any other details.
Somalia’s president accused al-Qaida of being behind the bombing but did not offer any evidence. He said the attack also killed a senior Somali diplomat.
“It was an act of terrorism and it is part of the terrorist attack on our people,” Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed told journalists in the capital. “Al-Qaida is attacking us.”
Al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage told local radio stations by phone that his group carried out the attack and that one of their fighters died.
“We killed the national security minister and the former ambassador to Ethiopia,” said Rage, speaking from an undisclosed location.
Al-Shabab, an extremist Somali Islamic group, is considered by the U.S. State Department to be a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaida, the terror network headed by Osama bin Laden. But al-Shabab has denied those links to the international group.
The United States accuses al-Shabab of harboring al-Qaida-linked terrorists who allegedly blew up U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. The United States has attempted to kill suspected al-Qaida members in Somalia several times with airstrikes.
The president said the national security minister was on official business in Belet Weyne but did not elaborate. In recent weeks Aden had frequently gone to Belet Weyne, which is considered a strategic town because it is close to the Ethiopian border and is on a road that goes directly to Mogadishu.
Aden, a former police officer, had risen to the rank of colonel during dictator Mohamed Siad Barre’s regime, the last effective central government in Somalia before the country descended into chaos. Aden later became a player in Somali politics and more recently had become an ally of President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed.
Experts have expressed fears that foreign Islamic militants could use Somalia as a base for terror in the region.
Diplomats have said that up to 400 foreign Islamic militants backed local insurgents in a surge of violence in Mogadishu in mid-May. That fighting claimed the lives of almost 200 civilians. The U.N. says the conflict has displaced more than 122,000 people.
Somalia has not had an effective government for 18 years after warlords overthrew Barre and plunged the country into anarchy and chaos. The lawlessness has also allowed piracy to thrive off the country’s coast, making Somalia the world’s worst piracy hotspot.
Separately, at least 17 people were killed in overnight battles between Islamic insurgents and government forces in Mogadishu, witnesses said today.
Information Minister Farhan Ali Mohamud denied the government targeted residential areas, adding government forces were only defending themselves.
An insurgent spokesman, Hassan Mahdi, said his side did not attack any government positions but were defending themselves. Mahdi said once the insurgents repulsed the government forces then the government side started shelling residential areas.
Neither spokesman gave any casualty figures. Mogadishu does not have any clearly defined battlegrounds and both sides’ forces are located close to residential areas.
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