Baidoa, Somalia - At least seven people were killed on Monday when two powerful blasts rocked Somalia's parliament building in a suspected assassination attempt against the country's interim president.
Somali Foreign Minister Ismail Mohamed Hurre said the blasts, at least one of which came from a car bomb, were an apparent attempt to assassinate the president and destabilise the weak government.
President President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was unhurt by the explosions that took place as he drove away from the building in a convoy shortly after delivering a speech, officials and witnesses said.
"This was an attack aimed at assassinating the president to destabilise the government," Hurre said in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi where he is on a visit.
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In Baidoa, the temporary seat of the Somali transitional government about 250km north-west of Mogadishu, medical sources said seven people had been confirmed dead and several seriously injured.
"At least seven people were killed and several others critically wounded by the explosion," said Mohamed Sharif, a nurse at Baidoa's main hospital.
He told AFP that the dead included several parliamentary security guards.
The first explosion from a car bomb sent a huge ball of flame into the sky and destroyed numerous vehicles parked in front of the parliament building, a converted warehouse, witnesses said.
"I saw a white car explode in front of the parliament, demolishing seven other cars nearby," witness Sahad Mohamed Abukar has said. "There were screams everywhere."
A second blast occurred about 15 minutes after the first, witnesses said.
Suleiman Olad Robleh, a member of parliament, said no one inside the building had been injured.
"Neither the president nor any lawmakers were wounded," he said by phone from inside the legislature. "The president has been taken by his bodyguards from the parliament to the presidential palace.
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