Al-Shabaab: just doing what they do best. An update on this story. “Somalia bomber hits as Kenya ministers visit Mogadishu,” from BBC News, October 18:
A car bomb has exploded outside the former foreign ministry in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, killing five people including the suicide bomber.
The attack came as Kenya’s defence and foreign ministers were holding talks nearby with the Somali government.
Kenya sent troops to Somalia on Sunday to fight Islamist al-Shabab militants it blames for a spate of kidnappings.
There have been contradictory statements from both countries about the presence of the Kenyan force.
A Somali government general, Yusuf Dhumal, told the BBC Somali Service on Tuesday from the village of Taabto, that his troops were with the Kenyan force heading towards an al-Shabab-held town of Afmadow, 120km (75 miles) from the border.
Al-Shabab, which controls much of southern Somalia, has denied carrying out any abductions and has warned of attacks in Kenya unless the troops withdraw. […]
The UN-backed transitional government in Mogadishu has refused to admit that the Kenyan troops are inside Somalia.
Mr Wetangula, who on Monday had said Kenya troops were in Somalia, said the talks with Somali officials had centred on bilateral relations and the fight against al-Shabab.
But his colleague Mr Haji, in an interview in Somali at Mogadishu airport, categorically denied that Kenyan troops were in Somalia.
“The Kenyan government did not declare anything of the sort… no Kenyan troops have been deployed to Somalia,” he told the BBC.
He said that Kenya had always refused to be part of the African Union force in Mogadishu in order to ensure good neighbourly relations.
The BBC’s Nairobi bureau editor David Okwembah says the defence minister may have given a contradictory message as he was addressing a Somali audience.