Car Bomb Wounds Peacekeepers in Somalia Capital
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
MOGADISHU, Somalia — A suicide car bomb attack on a building housing Burundian peacekeepers wounded at least seven people in the Somali capital yesterday, witnesses and an African Union official said.
Officials said they did not know if a body at the scene was the bomber’s or a victim’s.
The military wing of Somalia’s main Islamic insurgent group claimed responsibility for the attack in a southern neighborhood of Mogadishu.
“A car driving at breakneck speed passed us and within seconds turned around and rammed into a locked gate that is not normally used. Then we heard a huge explosion whose dust covered us,” Abdullahi Hussein Sabriye said. He said he witnessed the attack from a tea shop.
“A huge explosion occurred outside the building where Burundian peacekeepers are based,” the African Union force spokesman, Major Bahoku Barigye, said, adding two soldiers were wounded. “One man, believed to be a Somali, died on the spot. I’m not sure if he was the suicide bomber or not,” Mr. Barigye said.
The car exploded before it got inside the complex, said a Burundian soldier who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. He said five Somali civilians also were wounded.
A spokesman for al-Shabab, Sheik Mukhtar Robow, told the Associated Press that his group was behind the attack. Al-Shabab, or “The Youth,” is the military wing of the Council of Islamic Courts that Ethiopian troops backing Somali soldiers ousted from its southern Somalia strongholds and the capital in December 2006.
“One of our fighters has targeted the African Union troops who are here to support the Ethiopian troops’ massacre of our people,” Mr. Robow said. He did not give any other details.
The 2,000 Ugandan and Burundian troops in Mogadishu are part of a proposed 8,000-troop A.U. peacekeeping force that has not been fully deployed because African countries have failed to commit the required troops. The force is supposed to protect key government buildings, the port and airport as well as train a national army and police force for Somalia.
