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Five presidential bodyguards were killed
Monday and several others injured when a car bomb exploded outside
Somalia's parliament in Baidoa. (Xinhua Photo)
Photo Gallery
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NAIROBI, Sept. 18 (Xinhua) -- Five presidential
bodyguards were killed Monday and several others injured when a car bomb
exploded outside Somalia's parliament in Baidoa. It was the latest in a
series of assassination attempts against President Abdullahi Yusuf, Somali
Foreign Minister Ismail Mohammud Hurreh said.
However, Yusuf was not hurt in the remote-controlled
bomb attack.
"Five
people were killed and three wounded in the president's convoy of three trucks
as he was moving to his palace from the parliament building," Hurreh said.
"The fighting between the presidential security force
and the attackers later ensued and six of the group that carried out the attack
were also killed and two captured," the minister said.
"From this what is very clear is that there was a
plan to assassinate the president carried out by an organized group. It was not
only something against an individual, but a plan organized to attack
transitional government officials," he said.
The foreign minister said the president had addressed
lawmakers in parliament where he asked them to approve a new government to
replace the previous one he dissolved due to inefficiency.
The minister said those who killed an Italian
Catholic nun in northern Mogadishu on Sunday were behind Monday's attack in
Baidoa, where the transitional federal government is based.
"The assassination attempt today in Baidoa is
associated with what happened in Mogadishu yesterday (Sunday) where the Catholic
nun was killed in cold blood. Whoever was behind that attack is also behind
this," he told reporters in Nairobi.
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Five presidential bodyguards were killed
Monday and several others injured when a car bomb exploded outside
Somalia's parliament in Baidoa. (Xinhua Photo)
Photo Gallery
>>> |
"The event which took the president to the parliament
was very important. The government was presenting its programs for the coming
six months. It was a democratic process taking place and the attack was not only
targeting the president but officials of the very best system we are trying to
bring about," he added.
He refused to speculate as to who was behind the
blasts but suggested they were probably linked to the proposed peacekeeping
mission.
"I am not accusing anybody at this stage, because I
don't want to speculate at this particular moment, but there were some people
who were claiming to fight Inter-Governmental Authority on Development
(IGAD) and Somalia is part of IGAD," he said.
Analysts said the blasts come amid pleas from the
transitional federal government (TFG) to the African Union (AU), to send
peacekeepers to the country to protect the powerless administration.
The minister appealed to the international community
especially the United Nations to lift its arms embargo on his country to enable
the UN-backed administration to gain a foothold in the lawless Horn of Africa
nation.
"We are appealing to the international community,
particularly the UN, to lift its arms embargo to enable our security forces to
operate legally. It's as a result of today's attack that we are asking the IGAD,
the AU to come to Somalia and help TFG to operate in an environment which it can
push through its programs," he said.
A standing international arms embargo on the country
further challenges the deployment of peacekeepers to the troubled Horn of Africa
nation, as well as the fact that the AU cannot afford the multimillion dollar
peacekeeping mission.
But the Islamists have vowed to fight foreign troops
if they are sent to Somalia to support Yusuf's government by the seven-member
east IGAD.
The AU Security Council recently approved plans to send a contingent of peacekeepers to Somalia by the end of the month, however, the Supreme Council of Islamic Courts, who have taken control of Mogadishu and large parts of southern Somalia, has vowed to fight any foreign force entering the country. Enditem
