Veiled Bomber Kills 3 Somali Ministers

Published: December 3, 2009



Mohamed Dahir/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The body of Somalia’s higher education minister was carried after an attack in Mogadishu.


The New York Times
NAIROBI, Kenya — In a devastating blow to Somalia’s fragile transitional government, a suicide bomber disguised as a veiled woman blew himself up at a college graduation ceremony in the capital on Thursday, killing at least 15 people, including 3 government ministers, Somali officials said.

The attack killed more high-ranking Somali officials than any before it, illustrating how weak the government really is. The fact that the government cannot protect even its own could further undermine the support it needs, especially within the country. The killings may also increase the urgency for the government, which has several thousand young soldiers in training, to go on the offensive before it is too late.

The bomber struck in a part of Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, that was thought be relatively safe, though many Somalis fear Islamic insurgents have infiltrated the government’s security forces all across the city.

The insurgents seem to have the ability to strike at will, as they did in September when they attacked a heavily fortified African Union peacekeeping base, killing more than a dozen peacekeepers.

Though no one has claimed responsibility yet for the attack on Thursday, it had all the earmarks of the Shabab, an extremist Islamist group in Somalia that is drawing increasingly close to Al Qaeda and harbors the ambition not only to rule Somalia, but also to foment a holy war across Africa. The Shabab have drawn jihadist fighters from around the world, including the United States, where officials believe several dozen Somali-Americans have left to fight in Somalia.

According to witnesses and government officials, dozens of medical students gathered around 11 a.m. at the Shamo Hotel to mark a hard-fought milestone — their college graduation, no small feat in a country that has been mired in chaos for nearly 20 years.

The Shamo Hotel is in the tiny enclave of Mogadishu that the government controls. The rest is under the grip of the Shabab or other extremist Islamist groups that have sawed off the hands of teenage thieves and even recently banned bras (Shabab fighters said bras were un-Islamic). The Shamo was considered one of the safest hotels and the base of choice for the few Westerners willing to risk a visit to the bullet-pocked city.

Several high-ranking government officials, including the ministers of health, education and higher education, were sitting in plastic chairs in a conference hall decorated with streamers, watching the students graduate, when the bomber, dressed in a thick black veil, detonated his explosives, witnesses said.

The three ministers were killed, along with two Somali journalists, the dean of Mogadishu’s medical school and more than 10 students. Dozens were gravely injured, including three other doctors in a city that is desperately short of them.

The killings prove that the insurgents “can easily go at the heart of the system,” said Mohamed Osman Aden, a Somali diplomat in Nairobi, who added: “This will create a lot of panic for all the supporters of the government.”

Both sides, the insurgents and the government, seem to be in a race against time.

The Shabab may be militarily tough, but they are not popular. While the Shabab and their allies control about two-thirds of the country, many Somalis have been increasingly chafing against their harsh form of Islam.

But the clock is ticking for Somalia’s transitional government. It currently controls only a few city blocks in a country the size of Texas, and has accomplished very little since a new, moderate Islamist president came into office in February and raised hopes for real change. Western countries, desperate to prevent Al Qaeda from securing a sanctuary in East Africa, see the transitional government as their last hope.

The United States has been pouring in millions of dollars in weapons for the government, though because of rampant defections, many of those guns immediately fell into Shabab hands, Somali officials have conceded. Other Western countries are helping to pay for the training of thousands of young Somalis to become the backbone of the new army. A government offensive was planned for this winter, but many people doubt it will make any difference.

“The government doesn’t have a clue, doesn’t have a plan, doesn’t have anything,” said one adviser to the United Nations operations in Somalia.

The adviser, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his position, said that the government was planning a major cabinet reshuffle, but that it was futile. “It’s like rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic,” he said.

Some of the government officials killed on Thursday were allied with the Shabab in 2006, when a grass-roots Islamist movement ruled most of Somalia.

One of them was Ibrahim Hassan Addou, the minister of higher education. Mr. Addou was a moderate Islamist who was skilled at weathering the vicissitudes of Somali politics. He was an American citizen of Somali descent who had spent years as an administrator at American University in Washington.

Mr. Addou said he had come back to help rebuild his country. He was known as “the professor.”

Mohammed Ibrahim contributed reporting.