behind the news

NYT, LAT, Wires Get the Story in Somalia

Following an attack on Somalia's president yesterday, readers of American newspapers could actually find considerable coverage on the bombing this morning.
September 19, 2006

Underreporting from Africa is nothing new. But following an attack on Somalia’s president yesterday, readers of American newspapers — in a welcome turn — could actually find a substantial amount of coverage on the bombing this morning.

Abdullah Yusuf “narrowly escaped an assassination attempt on Monday when a suicide car bomber rammed into his convoy and blew up outside the Parliament building in Baidoa,” where Somalia’s transitional government is housed, the New York Times‘ Jeffrey Gettleman reported from Mogadishu.

While Yusuf was not injured, “at least eight people were killed,” including “the president’s younger brother, Dirie Yusuf Ahmed,” Gettleman added.

Quoting Yusuf’s account in a radio address, Gettleman reported: “As his entourage drove off, a Toyota sedan slammed into the lead car and exploded. Several cars were swallowed by flames, including the president’s. Bodyguards yanked Mr. Yusuf out and rushed him to a fortified headquarters not far away, he said.”

With Islamists in Mogadishu now wielding the real power in the country, “Yusuf, a former warlord, is backed by the United Nations but supported by very few people in Somalia,” Gettleman noted. “His zone of authority barely extends past the city limits of Baidoa.”

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times‘ Edmund Sanders provided some deeper context. His story, which was played on A4, reported high up that “The attack marked the second consecutive day of bloodshed in the Horn of Africa nation, which has been without a functioning government since 1991. On Sunday, gunmen in Mogadishu shot to death an Italian nun and her bodyguard outside a children’s hospital.”

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“Despite years of instability and violence, car bombs have been rare in Somalia,” Sanders noted, “and local officials quickly blamed foreign militants,” specifically al Qaeda.

Importantly, Sanders also noted that the attack “came at a particularly sensitive time for the government. Yusuf’s administration is attempting to negotiate a power-sharing agreement with the Conservative Council of Islamic Courts, which seized control of Mogadishu earlier this year. … Both sides are to meet again in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, next month to continue negotiations.”

Describing the bombing, which occurred just after Yusuf urged lawmakers “to put aside their differences and endorse his newly reshuffled Cabinet,” Sanders essentially supplemented Gettleman’s reporting: “The blast ignited at least seven other cars and flung wreckage more than 100 yards to the doorstep of the parliament building, witnesses said. Inside, panicked lawmakers screamed and fled the building. Security guards fired into the air, adding to the sense of chaos, witnesses said.”

Supplementing Sanders, the Associated Press reported today that “As Yusuf fled, a gun battle broke out between his bodyguards and eight suspected accomplices of an apparent suicide bomber,” with six killed and two captured. And beyond the AP, Reuters and Agence France Presse have filed stories from Baidoa itself, while McClatchy Newspapers contributed a report from Nairobi, Kenya.

In all, that adds up to considerable coverage — widely informing readers, on this day at least, of an important development in East Africa.

Edward B. Colby was a writer at CJR Daily.