BOMBING TARGETS SOMALI MINISTER !

Somalia's interior minister vowed to overcome the "enemies of the people"

Somali Interior Minister Abdulkadir Ali Omar has been wounded in a deadly bomb attack in the capital Mogadishu.

The BBC's Mohammed Olad Hassan in the city says the minister's secretary was killed and a bodyguard also injured.

The minister was passing through the capital's bustling Bakara market - a stronghold of the radical al-Shabab militia - when a landmine went off.

The new government can only work in parts of Mogadishu, as Islamists and militias run swathes of the country.

"We will do all we can to resolve the matter," Mr Omar, wearing a white bandage on his leg, told journalists in Mogadishu, reported AP news agency.

"We will still pursue the peace process and we'll manage to overcome the enemies of the people."

Mr Omar is one of the relatively moderate Islamists who lead the new interim unity government, set up in recent months under a UN reconciliation process.

Correspondents say the fragile administration faces an uphill struggle trying to reach a peace deal with radical Islamists.

Mr Omar led an Islamist militia that fought alongside al-Shabab against the Ethiopian troops who invaded Somalia in late 2006 in an effort to prop up a wobbly UN-backed government.

The Ethiopians withdrew this January under the terms of the UN-brokered peace deal that led to the more moderate rebels laying down arms and entering government.

Radical insurgent groups like al-Shabab now control much of the country and areas of the capital itself.

Somalia has been without an effective central government since President Siad Barre was overthrown in 1991.

BBC NEWS REPORT.