Posted: Thu Nov 30, 2006 12:52 pm
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061130/wl_ ... &printer=1
Witnesses said police tried to stop the explosives-laden car when it detonated.
"The car was trying to go through the checkpoint and one man came out of it," Baidoa resident Fowzi Abdi Noor said by telephone soon after leaving the scene.
"The police told him to stop, and then the car exploded."
He said he could see four charred bodies in the car believed to be carrying the suicide bomber.
A senior police officer told Reuters seven people had died in the attack and four were wounded.
"We tried to stop it but it exploded immediately," he said.
The incident occurred 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 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 is on the verge of all-out war, with Horn of Africa neighbors Ethiopia and Eritrea said to be backing the government and Islamists respectively.
"MY BABY IS BLEEDING"
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 traveling in her car lost an eye in the blast, Sahal said.
A nurse at Baidoa hospital said four wounded were admitted."
Witnesses said police tried to stop the explosives-laden car when it detonated.
"The car was trying to go through the checkpoint and one man came out of it," Baidoa resident Fowzi Abdi Noor said by telephone soon after leaving the scene.
"The police told him to stop, and then the car exploded."
He said he could see four charred bodies in the car believed to be carrying the suicide bomber.
A senior police officer told Reuters seven people had died in the attack and four were wounded.
"We tried to stop it but it exploded immediately," he said.
The incident occurred 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 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 is on the verge of all-out war, with Horn of Africa neighbors Ethiopia and Eritrea said to be backing the government and Islamists respectively.
"MY BABY IS BLEEDING"
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 traveling in her car lost an eye in the blast, Sahal said.
A nurse at Baidoa hospital said four wounded were admitted."
@ Cawar
