Mogadishu, Somalia – The transitional president of Somalia narrowly escaped assassination Monday when a car bomb exploded as he left a converted grain silo that serves as the nation’s makeshift Parliament.
President Abdullahi Yusuf was unharmed. But eight other people, including his brother and several security guards, were killed by the blast in Baidoa, the provisional capital.
The attack marked the second consecutive day of bloodshed in the Horn of Africa nation, which has been without a functioning government since 1991. On Sunday, gunmen in Mogadishu shot to death an Italian nun and her bodyguard outside a children’s hospital.
Despite years of instability and violence, car bombs have been rare in Somalia, leading local officials immediately to blame foreign militants. One government minister described the bombing as an “al-Qaeda-type attempt.”
No group immediately claimed responsibility.
“We hear about this type of thing in Iraq, but not Somalia,” said Abdul Fatah Ibrahim Rasheed, a member of Parliament. “This is something that is very new for us.”
The blast comes at a particularly sensitive time for the government. Yusuf’s administration is attempting to negotiate a power-sharing agreement with the Islamic Courts Union, which seized control of Mogadishu early this year. Some officials in Baidoa accused the union of participating in the attack.
“It will jeopardize the peace process if it becomes very obvious that the Islamists are behind this terrorist act,” Foreign Minister Ismail Hurre Buba Hurre told reporters during a visit in Nairobi, Kenya.
Islamist officials denied any knowledge of the attack.
“We know nothing about it, but we are very sorry for anything that hurts the security of Somalia,” said Sheik Mukhtar Robow Ali, the deputy security chief for the courts union, an alliance of religious leaders formed in an attempt to bring order to Mogadishu.
Both sides are due to meet again in Khartoum, Sudan, next month to continue negotiations.
