Qaida blast kills Somali minister..Somali minister among 30 killed in suicide bombing

MOGADISHU: Hardline Islamist insurgents killed Somalia’s security minister and at least 24 other people on Thursday in the deadliest suicide bomb
attack yet in the Horn of Africa nation, officials said,Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden was a key player in the government offensive against Islamist rebels who control much of southern Somalia and want to topple the government and impose a strict version of Islamic law in the Horn of Africa nation. A suicide car bomber targeted Aden and other officials at a hotel in Baladwayne, a central town where the minister was helping direct operations against the insurgent group al Shabaab, which Washington says has links to al-Qaida. Mohamed Abdi, a shopkeeper near the hotel, said smoke was rising from the building, government forces started shooting after the blast and body parts were scattered in the street. Officials and hospital sources said the bomb killed at least 25 people and wounded 38. “I am sending condolences to the family of the Security Minister Omar Hashi who was killed in an explosion in Baladwayne,” President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed told reporters, calling al Shabaab nothing more than a “mafia.” Aden moved to Baladwayne at the start of June with heavily armed troops in a bid to recapture more territory from hardline Islamist insurgents outside Mogadishu. Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the suicide attack. “One of our mujahideen has carried out that holy attack and the socalled security minister and his men were killed,” Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, told local media. Government forces battled Islamic insurgents with mortars and small arms fire overnight in Mogadishu and 12 bodies were recovered from the clashes, witnesses said on Thursday. The fighting appeared to have been the most intense in a single day for several weeks. Meanwhile, 18 people, including the city’s police chief, were killed on Wednesday after government forces carried out a predawn attack on an Islamist rebel stronghold here in the capital. Nearly 300 people have been killed and more than 122,000 displaced since the Shebab stepped up its campaign to overthrow his shaky administration in early May, bringing the total number of refugees inside the country to 1.3 million, according to the UN. Somalia has been gripped by civil wars and insurgencies and bereft of stable government since the overthrow of president Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991
Somali minister among 30 killed in suicide bombing
http://news.scotsman.com/world/Somali-minister-among-30-killed.5381755.jp