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Africa Horn
Somali President Resolute after Shebab Car Bombing
2013-11-10
[An Nahar] Somalia's president vowed Saturday he would not halt efforts to restore peace and security to the country in the wake of a car kaboom in central Mogadishu by al-Qaeda-linked Shabaab rebels.

The huge blast on Friday evening outside a top hotel in Somalia's capital killed at least four people, including a government official, and maimed 15, according to the government.

"I strongly condemn this heinous act of terrorism outside the Maka al Mukurama Hotel by Shabaab, which caused deaths and injuries to civilians," Somalia's internationally backed president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, said in a statement.

"The aim of the attack was to terrorize people in order to stop the huge progress towards peace and stability in Somalia. We say out loudly to Shabaab that you will never stop us making huge progress towards peace and stability and good governance," he added.

Officials said one of the country's top diplomats -- Abdulkadir Ali Dhuub, a former acting ambassador to London -- was killed when the boom-mobile went kaboom! outside the hotel, which is popular with officials and businessmen.

The statement from the presidency said another blast was averted, with a man carrying a "laptop and explosive items" apprehended while trying to set off a bomb inside the hotel at the same time as the boom-mobile.

In northeastern Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland
...a region in northeastern Somalia, centered on Garowe in the Nugaal province. Its leaders declared the territory an autonomous state in 1998. Puntland and the equally autonomous Somaliland seem to have avoided the clan rivalries and warlordism that have typified the rest of Somalia, which puts both places high on the list for Islamic subversion...
region, authorities said they had also repelled a late Friday night Shabaab raid on a prison holding Death Eaters.

"A group estimated to be 30 to 40 men armed with rocket launchers, machine-guns and hand grenades attacked Bossaso Central Prison," the regional government said in the statement, adding that its troops "bravely defended the prison and repelled the attackers".

It said no prisoners escaped during the raid, and that Shabaab rebels were being pursued into a nearby mountainous area.

Shabaab forces of Evil have been pushed out of Mogadishu but still control large parts of the countryside and have continued to strike at the heart of the capital.

In September the group also grabbed credit for a massacre at an upmarket shopping center in the Kenyan capital Nairobi that left at least 67 dead.

The latest attack comes as the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
force in Somalia, AMISOM, is asking the U.N. Security Council to green-light a boost in its numbers as part of efforts to step up offensive operations against the Shabaab.

It also comes after a U.S. army drone strike on a Shabaab convoy last month that officials said killed the rebels' top suicide bomb-maker.
Posted by:Fred

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