Mogadishu blast kills 3 as top UN aid official visits

MOGADISHU, May 12 (Reuters) An explosion near the UN compound in Mogadishu killed three people today, shortly after the United Nations' top aid official arrived to tour the shattered capital.

A security source said a senior intelligence official was killed when gunmen detonated an explosive device planted in his car shortly after UN emergency relief coordinator John Holmes landed in Mogadishu where he met President Abdullahi Yusuf.

The source said the attack, the latest targeting senior officials in Mogadishu, was unrelated to Holmes' visit.

''Ibrahim Mohamed Ahmed, a senior intelligence officer who was in charge of the airport died along with two others,'' the security source told Reuters.

''He had many enemies because of his work. We can't point a finger now, but certainly it's his enemies who are behind this.'' There has been relative calm in Mogadishu since the interim government and its Ethiopian military allies declared victory over insurgents two weeks ago, in a move that has encouraged small numbers of Somalis to return home.

More than half Mogadishu's 1 million people have been forced to flee their homes because of clashes between allied Somali-Ethiopian troops and insurgents which have killed at least 1,300 people in the city's worst fighting in 16 years.

Holmes, the highest ranking UN official to visit Somalia since the recent fighting, hopes to push the government to allow relief agencies full access to the country's population.

''There is a serious humanitarian crisis and I want to come and see for myself, to talk to the authorities, to try to pressure them on the need to do all they can to facilitate humanitarian aid,'' Holmes said.

''It is their responsibility to look after civilians, to protect civilians and at the very least not to obstruct aid.'' INSECURITY Holmes at first considered scrapping his tour of Mogadishu, but later went on to visit a cholera treatment centre and then the Villa Somalia presidential palace where he had a private meeting with President Yusuf.

Earlier, women and children waved and yelled from the doorways of buildings pockmarked with bullet holes as his convoy rolled through the sandy streets of Mogadishu lined with African Union (AU) troops.

Last month the United Nations accused all sides in the Somalia conflict of breaking humanitarian law by indiscriminately firing on civilian areas in Mogadishu.

Aid workers have also complained that Somali authorities had failed to clear food shipments for distribution and said they were being harassed at checkpoints.

Since then, the government has promised to clear obstacles to providing aid to tens of thousands of people, stricken by the fighting as well as but last year's droughts and flooding.

The government, formed in 2004, is determined to restore central rule to the lawless Horn of Africa country for the first time since warlords toppled dictator Mohamed Siad Barre in 1991.

In recent weeks, it has ordered civilians to be disarmed, deployed troops to flush out insurgents from rebel areas and allowed security forces to seize Muslim women's veils to stop insurgents from disguising themselves for attacks.

But insecurity is widespread.

Holmes said the situation had to become more stable before more AU peacekeepers could be expect in Somalia to boost a 1,500-strong Ugandan contingent stationed there.

The AU has appealed to member states who have pledged troops to deploy them quickly to allow Ethiopian troops to withdraw.

REUTERS SG KP1757