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Source: Reuters -
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The United Nations is investigating the use of its vehicles by
suicide bombers who killed 17 African Union peacekeepers at their
main base in Somalia, a senior official said.
The Somali government warned on Friday that Islamist rebels from
the al Shabaab group had six more stolen UN cars primed with
explosives ready for suicide attacks.
"There are very large numbers of UN vehicles in Somalia that have
been used for a variety of projects," Mark Bowden, the UN
humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, said.
He said the United Nations had been given the chassis number of one
of the vehicles used in Thursday's blasts.
"We are trying to trace whether it's a UN vehicle," Bowden
added.
President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed said the attack, which followed
Monday's killing of one of Africa's most wanted al Qaeda suspects
by US Special Forces, would not deter his government and he called
on the world to send it more help.
"The bombing was shocking ... I urge the world to assist the
starving Somali people," Ahmed told reporters in a news conference
at his hilltop Villa Somalia palace on Saturday.
He said his administration had given Washington permission to hunt
down Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan - a 28-year-old Kenyan wanted over the
2002 truck bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Kenya that killed
15 people - because it could not catch him.
UN precautions
Insurgents overran UN compounds in Jowhar and Baidoa in May and
July, looting supplies and stealing vehicles.
That has prompted speculation the cars used in the suicide attacks
were seized then, but Bowden raised the possibility that the
vehicles could have come from further afield.
"Depending on the marking, they could have been vehicles that have
been brought in from the Eritrean peacekeeping operation, or they
are vehicles that have been used on projects over the years," he
said.
Bowden said this week's attack on the AMISOM peacekeepers'
heavily-guarded base by Mogadishu airport would not weaken the UN's
resolve to deliver aid to half the Somali population.
But he said it could hinder operations on the ground.
"We have to take greater precautions around Mogadishu. Clearly the
airport is more at risk and that will affect our ability to move
staff and humanitarian goods," he said.
The al Shabaab rebel group, which Washington says is al Qaeda's
proxy in the failed Horn of Africa state, controls much of the
south and parts of the capital.
Together with another group Hizbul Islam, it has been fighting
government troops and the AU peacekeepers to impose its own strict
version of Sharia law throughout Somalia.
On Saturday, al Shabaab gunmen ordered traders at Mogadishu's
sprawling Bakara Market to join their fight or quit their stalls,
businessmen said.
The rebels also demanded they contribute financially or in kind
to their cause.
More than 18,000 Somalis have been killed in fighting since the
start of 2007 and another 1.5 million left homeless.
Bowden said severe drought for the fifth year in a row had
compounded the effects of rising violence and driven half the
population into food aid dependence.
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