2008-10-29 19:10:56  

    MOGADISHU, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) --

At least 21 people have been killed and almost 30 others were wounded after a wave of coordinated suicide car bombings hit targets across northern Somalia on Wednesday, officials and witnesses said.

    Nearly 20 of the dead were in Hargeysa, the capital of the breakaway republic of Somaliland, where the Presidential Palace, the UNDP office and a commercial office of Ethiopia were attacked by three separate suicide car bombs that exploded within minutes of each other, witnesses told Xinhua.

    "Nearly twenty-two others were wounded in the three explosions which took place in Hargeysa," Ahmed Ali, a resident in Hargeys, who went to the scenes of the explosion, told Xinhua.

    In coastal port city of Bossaso, the commercial capital of the northeastern semi-autonomous region of Puntland, two suicide car bombers blew themselves up inside two compounds of the local Anti-terrorism Squad, Adde Musse, president of Puntland, said at a news conference.

    Musse said it was too early to lay the play on anyone and that investigations were continuing into the attacks which he said were "unprecedented" in Puntland.

    One woman was reportedly killed while eight soldiers were wounded in the two compounds which were extensively damaged by the blasts which have coincided with those in Hargeysa and were minutes apart.

Editor: Zheng E

Somalia: Attacks on Troops, Foreign Forces

Garowe Online,

16 October 2008 Posted to the web 17 October 2008

Somali resistance fighters attacked bases housing Ethiopian occupation troops, African Union peacekeepers and Somali soldiers in coordinated attacks Thursday, Radio Garowe reported.

At least 15 people were killed in separate battles that raged in the countryside and in the capital Mogadishu, including mortar raids that killed many civilians.

 Somali resistance fighters launched mortars as a military plane landed at Mogadishu's Aden Adde International Airport, where an AU contingent is based. In a separate attack, AU peacekeepers near the K4 junction came under insurgent fire.

Somali police aided the AU soldiers during the K4 battle where at 7 seven people including three police officers were killed, according to witnesses.

AU peacekeeping force spokesman Bahoku Barigye said four civilians died but no soldier was killed during the attack.

Attacks on Ethiopian occupation troops in southern Mogadishu sparked battles and retaliatory artillery barrages killed at least six civilians inside Bakara Market, witnesses reported.

Medina Hospital officials said 20 wounded victims were admitted following heavy battles in the morning and during the afternoon.

Separately, a military vehicle was targeted in a roadside explosion that killed at least 2 soldiers aboard, witnesses in Hamarjabab quarter told Radio Garowe.

Col. Dahir Mohamed Hersi, the Somali army's spokesman, denied reports that he was inside the vehicle or that his bodyguards were among the dead.

Four other civilians were wounded in the heavy explosion.

Meanwhile, Ethiopian occupation troops traveling through the regions of Bay and Lower Shabelle were ambushed by Islamist rebels.

There were no reports of casualties from the battle in the countryside, but the attack is part of the Somali resistance fighters war against the Ethiopian-backed Somali interim government and its AU allies.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi reiterated today his government's stance to keep troops in Somalia until the AU deploys a full peacekeeping force of 8,000 soldiers.