Suicide attack kills at least four in Somalia

MOGADISHU, Nov 30 (Reuters) An apparent suicide bomb attack at a checkpoint outside the Somali government seat of Baidoa killed at least four people today, witnesses said.

They told Reuters a car drove up to the checkpoint, about three miles outside Baidoa, before blowing up and destroying two other cars with it.

''The car was trying to go through the checkpoint and one man came out of it,'' local Baidoa resident Fowzi Abdi Noor told Reuters by telephone soon after leaving the scene.

''The police told him to stop, and then the car exploded. I can see four charred bodies inside the car,'' he said, referring to the car believed to be carrying the suicide bomber.

The incident came after Somalia's first known suicide bombing targeted President Abdullahi Yusuf in Baidoa in September. Yusuf blamed al Qaeda for that attack, which killed five people including his brother outside parliament in the town 150 miles (240 km) from the capital Mogadishu.

His government is involved in a standoff with Mogadishu-based Islamists, who took a swathe of south Somalia in June. Diplomats and others fear Somalia could soon slip into all-out war, with Horn of Africa neighbours Ethiopia and Eritrea said to be backing the government and Islamists respectively.

Witnesses said there were probably more casualties at the scene of today's explosion, but details were not immediately clear.

REUTERS PB RN2114