Gunmen attack police station in Somaliland

By Hussein Ali Noor
January-13-10

HARGEISA (Reuters) - Unidentified attackers hurled hand grenades and opened fire at a police station in Somalia's northern breakaway enclave of Somaliland, wounding three officers, police sources said Wednesday.

Somaliland is proud of its relative stability, unlike southern regions of the failed Horn of Africa state, where hardline al Shabaab insurgents control large amounts of territory and are fighting a weak Western-backed government.

Washington accuses al Shabaab of being al Qaeda's proxy in Somalia, and security experts say the group wants to extend its influence north -- aiming to destabilise Somaliland and the neighbouring pro-government, semi-autonomous region of Puntland.

Somaliland police sources told Reuters than an unknown number of attackers threw two grenades at the police station in Las Anod, near the border with Puntland, late Tuesday before opening fire on the building with assault rifles.

Three policemen on duty there were wounded, two of them seriously, hospital staff said.

The police sources said the town was placed under curfew overnight with extra patrols, and that officers later found a Toyota pickup truck believed to have been used by the gunmen.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

The assault came just three days after security forces in Somaliland said they had foiled an attack on a Hargeisa mosque where the imam had spoken out against militant suicide bombings.

Officials said six rockets and two mortar bombs had been recovered from Imam Sheikh Aden Sira's mosque after a suspected bomber was discovered carrying them in a jacket.

Sira had been critical of suicide bombings carried out by al Shabaab in southern Somalia, and said he received death threats.

Wednesday, the police sources said one man had been arrested in connection with the Hargeisa mosque incident, and that another was being hunted. They did not elaborate.

Al Shabaab hit Somaliland and Puntland with synchronised suicide blasts that killed at least 24 people in October 2008.

A court in Hargeisa has sentenced five men to death in absentia for the bombings, which struck the Ethiopian embassy, the local president's office and a U.N. building. It said they were on the run in other parts of Somalia.

Somaliland, which has long sought international recognition as sovereign state, declared itself independent in 1991.

Analysts worry a simmering political row between the president of Somaliland and opposition parties over delayed elections could lead to clan militias re-arming, an outbreak of violence, and more turmoil for al Shabaab rebels to exploit.(Editing by Daniel Wallis and Giles Elgood)