Somalia president: al-Qaida behind suicide bombing

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Somalia's president says al-Qaida is behind a suicide bombing that killed the national security minister in a western Somali town.
Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed says a senior Somali diplomat also died in Thursday's attack in Belet Weyne that killed at least 20 people.
"It was an act of terrorism and it is part of the terrorist attack on our people," Ahmed said. "Al-Qaida is attacking us."
Ahmed spoke to journalists in the Somali capital.http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090618/ap_on_re_af/af_somalia_16
Somalia’s Security Minister Is Killed by Suicide Bomb
June 18 (Bloomberg) -- Somali Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden was among at least 17 people killed in a suicide bombing believed to have been carried out by al-Qaeda, the nation’s presidency and an eyewitness said.
Abdikarin Hussein Farah Laqanyo, the former ambassador to neighboring Ethiopia, also died in the attack on the Medina Hotel in Beledweyne in central Somalia, said Abdulkadir Mohamed Osman, director of information in the Somali presidency. The Associated Press reported at least 20 people were killed in the incident, without citing anyone.
“We believe the attack was carried out by al-Qaeda and al- Shabaab,” Osman said by phone from the capital, Mogadishu.
Al-Qaeda has sent as many as 300 fighters to Somalia to support Islamists and warlords seeking to topple the government of President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s top political aide told the Security Council last month. Al-Shabaab, an Islamist rebel group, has been accused by the U.S. of providing safe-haven and logistical support to al-Qaeda, which aims to establish a caliphate, or Islamic government, in Somalia.
This morning’s attack occurred while guests were gathering for a wedding ceremony, Haji Mohamed Ibrahim, a clan elder in Beledweyne who visited the hotel after the attack, said in a phone interview from the city.
“It was a horrific incident,” he said. “Many people died on the scene.”
Somalia is in its 18th year of civil war and hasn’t had a functioning central administration since the ouster of Mohamed Siad Barre, the former dictator, in 1991.
Last night, at least 13 people were killed in northern Mogadishu when a stray mortar shell hit a mosque during evening prayers amid clashes between Islamist fighters and government forces. Earlier in the day, at least 15 people died in fighting between the two sides in the south of the city.
To contact the reporter on this story: Hamsa Omar in Mogadishu via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.