Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi escaped unharmed after his convoy hit a landmine that failed to explode in northern Mogadishu, a Somali official said on Thursday.
Gedi was returning from a ceremony at the capital’s main airport for the departure of the bodies of four Ugandan African Union peacekeepers killed the previous day.
“A landmine which was planted to hurt the Somali prime minister failed to detonate,” an official from Gedi’s office told Agence France-Presse, requesting anonymity.
He said the landmine let off huge clouds of smoke.
A witness said the prime minister’s officials jumped off their vehicles and fired into the air after hitting the landmine.
“The security men arrested several people in the area,” said Mohamed Abdi Abdulahi.
No one was injured in the incident in the Juba neighbourhood of northern Mogadishu, the third attempt on Gedi’s life since he was nominated to head Somalia’s transitional government in 2004.
Gedi was earlier at Mogadishu International Airport, from where the bodies of the four Ugandan peacekeepers killed by a roadside bomb on Wednesday left for Kampala.
One child was killed and another injured in the blast. Five peacekeepers were also injured, three of whom were being treated in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Thursday.
“We condemn the barbaric act done by some troublesome people who want to discourage Amison forces,” Gedi said earlier at the airport ceremony.
Amison, the African Union force in Somalia, currently comprises about 1 500 Ugandan soldiers. The African body is struggling to gather a total of 8 000 troops.
The force’s spokesperson, captain Paddy Ankunda, was undeterred on Thursday.
“People die and it was their day,” he said of Wednesday’s deaths. “We are still strong and this is not something that could discourage us.”
“We came here to help people and we are still ready to help.”
AU commission chief Alpha Oumar Konare Wednesday expressed his “utter shock and disbelief” at the attack, which brings the number of Ugandan peacekeepers killed since their March deployment to five.
The troops are due to take over from Ethiopian forces who helped Somali troops expel an Islamist movement from south and central Somalia at the start of the year.
However, Konare told AFP this week that an Ethiopian withdrawal before the full deployment of African peacekeepers would result in “catastrophe”.
An Ethiopian-Somali offensive last month ended weeks of clashes with Islamist-led insurgents that killed hundreds of civilians and forced tens of thousands to flee.
More than a dozen people have been killed and scores wounded in separate attacks since then, mainly by homemade bombs and grenades.
Somalia, a nation of 10-million, has been without an effective government since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre sparked a bloody power struggle that has defied numerous attempts to restore stability. – AFP