Suicide attack kills at least four in Somalia
Source: Reuters
(adds quotes) MOGADISHU, Nov 30 (Reuters) - An apparent suicide bomb attack at a checkpoint outside the Somali government seat of Baidoa killed at least four people on Thursday, witnesses said. They said a car drove up to the checkpoint, about three miles (five km) outside Baidoa, before blowing up and destroying two other cars with it. "The car was trying to go through the checkpoint and one man came out of it," local Baidoa resident Fowzi Abdi Noor told Reuters by telephone. "The police told him to stop, and then the car exploded. I can see four charred bodies inside the car," he said, referring to the car believed to be carrying the bomber. Raha Sahal was driving to Baidoa with her two-year-old son. "As soon as we tried to move out of the customs checkpoint, the car behind us exploded," she told Reuters by telephone, her voice cracking with emotion. "I don't know what is wrong with my baby. He is bleeding from his ears." She said she saw "several" badly burned bodies lying on the road between the wrecked vehicles behind, but was too distressed to say exactly how many. An old woman travelling in her car lost an eye in the blast, Sahal said. The incident came after Somalia's first known suicide bombing targeted President Abdullahi Yusuf in Baidoa in September. Yusuf blamed al Qaeda for that attack, which killed five people including his brother outside parliament in the town 150 miles (240 km) from the capital Mogadishu. His government is involved in a standoff with Mogadishu-based Islamists, who took a swathe of south Somalia in June. Diplomats and others fear Somalia could soon slip into all-out war, with Horn of Africa neighbours Ethiopia and Eritrea said to be backing the government and Islamists respectively. Witnesses said there were probably more casualties from Thursday's explosion, but details were not immediately clear.
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