From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Wed Oct 29 2008 - 09:08:04 EST
Massive blasts rock north Somalia
Wed, 29 Oct 2008 11:28:50 GMT
Five massive explosions have rocked high-profile targets in northern Somalia and the breakaway republic of Somaliland, killing over 64.
In the port town of Bossaso in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region a car filled with heavy explosives rammed through an Intelligence Service headquarter, killing over 41 soldiers and high ranking officers.
Less than 4 minutes later another massive explosion rattled the Puntland Presidential Palace, killing and injuring an unknown number of people, witnesses told Press TV correspondent in Somalia on Wednesday.
Meanwhile three other near-simultaneous blasts went off at almost the same time as the attacks in Bossaso in Hargeysa, capital of the breakaway region of Somaliland.
Eye witnesses say that the Ethiopian embassy and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) compound were targeted, as was Somaliland's presidential palace, which are all situated in the same neighborhood.
At least 23 people have died in Hargeysa blasts, among which is the Ethiopian ambassador to Somaliland, reports say.
No group has yet claimed responsibility for any of the attacks in the two cities, which are normally relatively peaceful compared to central and southern Somalia, where a bloody insurgency is raging.
The attacks were made as peace talks failed after the unpopular Western-backed transitional government informed the opposition that Ethiopian forces would not leave Somalia.
In protest the main opposition groups rejected the ceasefire deal -- due to come into force on November 5 -- and vowed to keep fighting until Ethiopian forces leave Somalia.
Somali blast kills police chief, 2 others
Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:34:38 GMT
A somali soldier
A roadside explosion has killed a police commander and two other people in southern Somalia, amid a surge in violence in the war-torn nation.
Deputy police chief for Lower Shabelle region Lieutenant Colonel Nuriye Ali Farah died Tuesday after his vehicle hit a roadside bomb in Merka, about 100 kilometers south of the capital Mogadishu, witnesses said.
"His vehicle was targeted by this bomb that was exploded by a remote control," Idriss Abdulkadir, who witnessed the attack, told AFP.
"The vehicle of the commander was hit by a landmine and Nuriye and a number of his bodyguards were instantly killed, many others were also wounded in other vehicles," Xinhua quoted Hussein Abdulahi, another witness as saying.
Somali insurgent groups often target government officials and security forces.
No group has so far claimed responsibility for the latest attack but government officials and security forces are often attacked by Somali insurgent groups.
The number of the dead, and their clear identities could not be immediately verified.
Farah and his boss in Lower Shabelle region had been sacked by the Somali national police chief in early August, but refused to leave their positions, officials said.
US plays Darfur card again
Wed, 29 Oct 2008 02:41:23 GMT
Washington has accused Khartoum of violating an embargo on arms transfers to its Darfur region.
The US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, made the accusation at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Darfur on Tuesday.
Khalilzad said that Sudan 'violated the limited arms embargo on Darfur, used aircraft painted to resemble UN humanitarian aircraft, (and) conducted offensive overflights in Darfur'.
Meanwhile, Sudan's UN Ambassador Abdalmahmoud Abdalhaleem dismissed the allegations, saying that the charge about painting aircraft to look like UN planes had been recycled from a year ago.
The African Union and the United Nations have sent thousands of peacekeepers to the war-torn region of Darfur, but are still far behind assembling the planned 26,000-strong force.
The UN claims up to 300,000 people have died in Darfur and around 2.5 million have been displaced since rebels rose up against Sudan's Arab-dominated government in February 2003. But Khartoum maintains the death toll does not exceed 10,000.
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