MOGADISHU, June 3: Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi escaped a deadly suicide car-bomb attack on his Mogadishu compound on Sunday that he said was an Al Qaeda operation aimed at destabilising his war-scarred country.

“What happened today was an Al Qaeda masterminded terrorist attack against me and the terrorists wanted to discourage the government and Somali nation, but they will never succeed,” Mr Gedi told local media.

“Six of my security men were killed in the explosion and I am right now with other officials in my compound,” he said.

The explosion, against Mr Gedi’s residence in the north of the capital, followed a deadly weekend assault in north-eastern Somalia by security forces and a US warship against extremists with suspected links to Al Qaeda.

A neighbour who declined to be named said the bomber rammed his car into the gates of Mr Gedi’s property, and then the blast shook the area.

“The explosion was very huge and could be heard in a long distance,” Abdi Salam Ali, another neighbour said.

“This was an attack against the prime minister. This is the work of anti-peace elements who want to terrorise the Somali people,” a government spokesman said, vowing that the perpetrators “shall be hunted and brought to justice.” It was the fourth time in a year that Mr Gedi has been the target of assassination attempts.

On May 17 a roadside explosion went off as his convoy drove past. Before that, he was the target of two other bomb attacks in November and May last year.

In Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Puntland, security forces backed by a US Navy destroyer attacked a mountainous zone believed to host Al Qaeda and other extremist bases.

At least 12 extremists were killed in the assault near the town of Bargal, which raged from Friday to early Saturday, Puntland military officials said.

Puntland Finance Minister Mohamed Ali Yusuf told reporters that “our forces are fully controlling Bargal.” He claimed that recovered documents showed the “terrorists (were) from America, Britain, Sweden, Morocco, Pakistan and Yemen.”—AFP