Somali Security Minister Killed in Explosion

A Somali man carries a boy wounded during mortar shelling, Wednesday, June 17, 2009 as Somali...

A Somali man carries a boy wounded during mortar shelling, Wednesday, June 17, 2009 as Somali government forces and Islamic fighters fought each other in the capital, Mogadishu. Somali government forces attacked rebel strongholds in Mogadishu on Wednesday, triggering battles that killed at least 11 people, including the capital's police chief, witnesses and officials said.A suicide bombing outside a hotel in western Somalia killed at least 20 people Thursday including the national security minister. The Somali president accused al-Qaida of being behind the attack.

(Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP Photo)

Somalia's national security minister and at least 24 other people were killed in a suicide attack Thursday in western Somalia, and an extremist Islamic group with alleged links to al-Qaida claimed responsibility.

President Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed accused al-Qaida of being behind the bombing, which also killed a senior Somali diplomat. He did not offer any evidence, but the attack appeared to be another indication that Somali Islamic militants are adopting two tactics long used by al-Qaida: suicide attacks and videos promoting their fundamentalist ideology.

In March, Osama bin Laden, the global terrorist network's leader, urged Somalis to overthrow Ahmed, calling him a tool of the United States in an audiotape that outlined al-Qaida's ambitions in Somalia.

"It was an act of terrorism and it is part of the terrorist attack on our people," Ahmed told journalists in Mogadishu, his country's capital. "Al-Qaida is attacking us."

Related

Threat Concern Prompts DHS to Halt U.S. Based Delta Flights into Kenya

Is Somalia in Ethiopia's Crosshairs Again?

Somali Pirate Suspect Pleads Not Guilty

The African Union, Arab League, the U.N. and a regional grouping condemned the attack in a joint statement.

"This deplorable attack once again demonstrates that the extremists will stop at nothing in their desperate attempt to seize power from the legitimate government of Somalia by force," the statement said.

The bombing in western Somalia far outside Mogadishu — claimed by the Somali militant group al-Shabab — raised concerns that local insurgents are aiming to take out leaders of security forces to further cripple the country's weak, U.N.-backed government. Analysts say the insurgents have identified suicide attacks and assassinations as the best way to defeat the government.

National Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden was the second senior security official to be killed in as many days. Mogadishu's police chief died during fighting with Islamic insurgents in the capital on Wednesday that saw at least 34 people killed.

"Omar Hashi Aden's death is a huge blow to the government," said Ali Said Omar, director of the Nairobi, Kenya-based Center for Peace and Democracy, an independent research organization that works in Somalia.