A series of bombings and grenade attacks in Somalia's capital killed five, including two schoolboys, and wounded nine Sunday, officials said, according to AP. Mogadishu is in the grip of a conflict between government troops and their Ethiopian allies, and Islamic insurgents who were toppled by an Ethiopian-led invasion in December. The Islamists vowed to conduct an Iraq-style insurgency. A blast in south Mogadishu near a school attended by hundreds of children killed two students, the school's director Mohamed Ahmed Farah said. It was not clear who planted the bomb. He said the two victims were teenagers, but he could not give their exact ages. A man who was also wounded in the blast died later at Ayaan Hospital, Dr. Hassan Gutaale said. Police said Islamist insurgents were responsible. «They plant bombs among the civilians and leave it behind. It is a barbaric decision,» police spokesman Col. Abdi Wahid said. He also said that attackers threw a grenade at police in a northeast neighborhood where the Islamists enjoy strong support, killing a civilian and wounding four others, three of them police officers. In a second strike on government forces, attackers threw three grenades at police near the city's main market, killing one person and injuring five, police spokesman Col. Abdi Shino said. Police arrested eight people, mainly youths, at a nearby Internet cafe in connection with the attack. Human rights groups have accused all sides in the Horn of Africa nation of regularly killing and injuring civilians. Thousands of Somalis have been killed this year alone. In a separate incident, the organizer of a U.N.-backed national reconciliation conference in Mogadishu said two delegates had been slightly wounded by shrapnel in a grenade attack Friday night. Ali Mahdi Mohamed said guards had not been able to catch the attackers.
