Thursday, October 30, 2008
Cleric Sheik Mohamed Ismail was arrested Wednesday in connection with five apparently coordinated attacks Wednesday in the breakaway republic of Somaliland and in Somalia's Puntland region, said Muse Gelle Yusuf, a governor in Puntland, .
He said several other people were being sought in connection with the attacks in the two areas, which have largely been spared the deadly violence of the country's south.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blasts, but the U.S. says they had the signature of al-Qaida.
The attacks targeted a U.N. compound, the Ethiopian consulate and the presidential palace in Somaliland's capital, Hargeisa. Two intelligence facilities were hit in Puntland.
Somalia has been without a functioning government since 1991, when clan warlords ousted longtime dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned on each other. The current government was formed in 2004 with the help of the United Nations, but has failed to protect citizens from violence or the country's poverty.
Islamic militants have waged an insurgency against Somali government troops and their Ethiopian allies for almost two years. The near-daily mortar attacks and gunbattles have killed thousands of Somali civilians in the capital, deaths that all sides blame on each other.
Somalia's north has tried to sever ties with the chaotic south,
which includes the beleaguered capital, Mogadishu. Puntland has a
semiautonomous administration, and Somaliland has long sought
international recognition as being its own nation, separate
from Somalia.
SOURCE: AP, Thursday, October 30, 2008