Suicide car bomber kills 7 in Somalia, residents flee

May 24, 2009

By Abdi Guled and Ibrahim Mohamed

MOGADISHU (Reuters) –

A suicide bomber killed six policemen and a civilian on Sunday in Somalia's capital, where Somali insurgents and pro-government forces fired shells at each other for a third day running.

Abdifatah Shaweye, deputy governor of Mogadishu, said the bomber drove a 4x4 vehicle to the gate of a police headquarters and detonated it by the guards.

"Four died on the spot, two others died of serious injuries, and one civilian (died)," a police commander, who asked not to be named, told Reuters.

An upsurge in violence this month has killed nearly 200 people in Mogadishu and forced some 60,000 residents from their homes. At least 53 people have died since Friday morning, when the government attacked rebel strongholds in the city.

Neighboring states and Western governments fear Somalia, which has been mired in civil war for 18 years, could become a haven for militants linked to al Qaeda unless the new government under President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed can defeat them.

Somali insurgent group al Shabaab, which Washington says has links to Osama bin Laden, has been spearheading the rebel offensive with allied guerrilla group Hizbul Islam. They stepped up attacks in the capital early in May.

After heavy fighting on Friday and Saturday, the two sides resumed lobbing shells at each other on Sunday afternoon.

FLEEING VIOLENCE

The United Nations says hundreds of foreign fighters have joined the rebels and an influential opposition leader told Reuters on Friday some Arabs had come to Somalia to wage holy war against the Western-backed government.

Security sources say the Somali insurgents have been planting more sophisticated roadside bombs in recent months and Iraq-style suicide attacks have become more frequent.

Two suicide bombers -- one wearing an explosive vest and another in a car -- infiltrated a compound housing peacekeeping troops from Burundi in February and killed 11 soldiers in the worst single attack on the African Union force.

On Sunday morning, more Mogadishu residents took advantage of a lull in the fighting to grab some belongings and flee to sprawling refugee camps outside the crumbling city.

A young woman wearing a bright blue headscarf trudged along a dusty road with a bed mat and mattress strapped to her back and a cooking pot and kerosene lamp hanging from her arms. A woman clutching a plastic bag and a small suitcase followed.

"I call on the international community and the aid agencies to react very urgently to the worsening humanitarian situation in Somalia," Mohamud Abdi Ibrahim, Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, told reporters on Sunday.

The U.N.'s refugee agency said on Sunday 57,000 people had fled Mogadishu since the upsurge in violence this month.

Since the start of 2007, fighting between Somali insurgents and pro-government forces has killed at least 17,700 civilians and driven more than a million from their homes. About 3 million Somalis survive on emergency food aid.

Even if government forces drive the rebels from Mogadishu, experts say they would struggle to control distant provinces, in a country plagued by violence since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991.

Ethiopia denied again reports from residents that it had sent soldiers back to Somalia, where its forces fought the insurgents for two years before withdrawing in January.

Residents in the southern Bakool region said Ethiopians in armored vehicles and trucks had entered a town in Somalia.

"We have not sent any troops into Somalia. We have been clear about this for days now. Nothing has changed," said Wahade Belay, spokesman for Ethiopia's Foreign Ministry.

(Additional reporting by Mohamed Ahmed and Barry Malone in Addis Ababa; writing by David Clarke; editing by Andrew Roche)