SECURITY MINISTER AMONG 20 PEOPLE KILLED IN SAMOLIA

A suicide bombing in western Somalia killed at least 20 people Thursday including the national security minister. The Somali president blamed al-Qaida while an extremist group with alleged links to the terror network claimed responsibility.
Information Minister Farhan Ali Mohamud announced the death of National Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden (photo) but declined to give any other details..

• Witness Mohamed Nur said a small car headed toward the gate of the Medina Hotel in Belet Weyne, then drove into vehicles leaving the hotel and exploded.
• Somalia's president accused al-Qaida of being behind the bombing but did not offer any evidence. He said the attack also killed a senior Somali diplomat.
• "It was an act of terrorism and it is part of the terrorist attack on our people," Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed told journalists in the capital. "Al-Qaida is attacking us."
• Al-Shabab spokesman Ali Mohamud Rage told local radio stations by phone that his group carried out the attack and that one of their fighters died.
• "We killed the national security minister and the former ambassador to Ethiopia," said Rage, speaking from an undisclosed location.
• Al-Shabab, an extremist Somali Islamic group, is considered by the U.S. State Department to be a terrorist organization with links to al-Qaida, the terror network headed by Osama bin Laden. But al-Shabab has denied those links to the international group.

Courtesy: Yahoo News