afrol News, 26 March - A roadside bomb in Somali’s capital Mogadishu has injured the interior minister Sheik Abdulkadir Ali Omar and killed his secretary near his house late Thursday, officials have confirmed.

The minister who has recently occupied the position was reportedly passing through the capital's busy Bakara market, a stronghold of the radical al-Shabab militia when a landmine went off.

Local media reports quoted Mr Omar, following the blast, saying the country will pursue the peace process and saying the country will manage to overcome the enemies of the people, referring to the al Shabab.

No group has claimed the responsibility for the attack yet, but many insurgent groups in and outside Somalia had vowed to continue fighting against the new government led by president Sharif Sheik Ahmed and the African Union peacekeepers.

Mr Omar led an Islamist militia that fought alongside al-Shabab against the Ethiopian troops who invaded Somalia in late 2006 in an effort to prop up a wobbly UN-backed government.

The Ethiopians withdrew this January under the terms of the UN-brokered peace deal that led to the more moderate rebels laying down arms and entering government.

Late Wednesday, the Uganda government sent a battalion of soldiers in volatile Somalia to beef up the African Union peacekeeping mission in the Horn of Africa, a move that has angered the radical insurgents in the country.

The new deployment in the Horn of African country comes just two weeks after the Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheik Ahmed visited Uganda and Burundi seeking for more help to fight insurgency in the country.

The AMISON currently has over 3,500 peacekeepers now deployed in Somalia are far below the 8,000 African Union peacekeepers required to help pacify the lawless country.

Somalia has not had an effective national government since 1991, since when various militias have been battling for control.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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