Ethiopian Compound Attacked by Suicide Bomber Inside Somalia

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By Hamsa Omar - Jan 24, 2012 8:05 AM GMT

• A suicide bomber detonated a minibus full of explosives outside a compound in southwestern Somalia that houses Ethiopian troops, said an official from a pro- government militia.

“An Ethiopian soldier fired on the minibus before it entered the compound and the attacker exploded himself at the front gate,” Sheikh Ahmed Abdullahi of the Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama’a militia said in a mobile-phone interview today from Beledweyne, near the Ethiopian border. “No casualties were reported.”
Ethiopian soldiers entered Somalia last month to help government forces capture Beledweyne from al-Shabaab, the al- Qaeda-linked militant group that controls most of southern and central Somalia.
The attack on Beledweyne was carried out by al-Shabaab, said an unidentified spokesman for the group who spoke on Radio Andulus, a broadcaster controlled by the militia.
Ethiopia’s intervention in Somalia is its second since 2006. Its forces withdrew in January 2009 after pushing the Islamic Courts Union out of Mogadishu, and later becoming bogged down in a guerrilla war with Islamic militants.
To contact the reporter on this story: Hamsa Omar in Mogadishu via Nairobi at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.