In a statement released Monday, Somalia's main Islamist insurgent group, the al-Shabaab, claimed responsibility for the failed attempt made earlier in the day on the life of a Somali government minister.
Just hours earlier, Defense Minister Yusuf Mohamed Siyad had escaped an attempt on his life in the capital city of Mogadishu after a suicide-bomber rammed his explosives laden car into the minister's limousine.
Though Siyad escaped the attack unhurt, at least two of his security guards sustained injuries in the explosion. More explosions reportedly occurred when the minster was attending to the wounded guards.
The minister, refusing to be cowed down by the incident, said after the failed attempt on his life that nothing would distract him from the job of restoring rule of law in the violence-torn African nation.
"This attack was a message from my enemy that they are committed to kill me and all the other government officials like me but for me it encourages me to be ready." he said.
The al-Shabaab militants have previously employed suicide bombing attacks to assassinate government ministers, and are suspected of carrying out a similar suicide attack in December on a medical school graduation ceremony in which four government ministers and 21 others were killed.
However, the al-Shabaab group, which had confirmed last month that its members were aligned to the al-Qaeda global terror network, denied any involvement in the December suicide attack that killed mostly students. The attack had evoked widespread public outrage in Somalia.
Somalia has been without a proper functioning government since the fall of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre's government in 1991. Currently, a weak UN-backed interim government under President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed is trying to enforce its authority in the country, most of which is controlled by various Islamist insurgent groups.
The latest developments follows a recent government announcement that it was planning to launch a major anti-militant offensive aimed at clearing the Islamist insurgents from the country. At present, the interim government's control is limited to small sections of Mogadishu, while the Islamist insurgent groups control large areas in southern Somalia, where they enforce strict Islamic law or the Sharia.
The al-Shabaab militants, along with other allied Islamist insurgent outfits have opposed past UN-sponsored reconciliation efforts in Somalia, insisting that they will negotiate with the country's UN-backed transitional government only after the AU peacekeeping mission leaves Somalia. They are now trying to oust the moderate Islamic government to set up a strict Islamic state.
Al-Shabaab, the military wing of the Islamist movement ousted by Ethiopian army-backed Somali forces over two years ago, is presently attempting to gain the support of other similar Islamist militant groups in its anti-government offensive aimed at overthrowing Somalia's interim government led by President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
Last year, Somali lawmakers elected Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed in Djibouti as the country's president. His election was in line with a UN-brokered peace deal signed between interim government of Somalia and the opposition Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS). It was aimed at ending 17 years of anarchy in the troubled Horn of Africa country.
Before becoming the Somali President, Sheikh Sharif was the leader of the Islamic Courts Union, which was ousted from Mogadishu in a joint military operation conducted by Ethiopian army and forces of the Somali interim government in December 2006.
Clashes between government troops and rebels are common in Somalia. The continued fighting between Islamist insurgents and the pro-government security has killed thousands of Somalis and displaced hundreds of thousands more, mostly from Mogadishu.
Presently, a 4,300-member AU force is struggling with peacekeeping efforts in Somalia after the militants turned to guerrilla warfare against the government and AU troops. So far only Uganda and Burundi have contributed troops to the AU peacekeeping force, which was initially planned with a strength of over 8,000.
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