28/11/08 (B476) Press TV / Mogadiscio : SIX morts dans l’explosion d’un mine. // 6 die in Mogadishu’s landmine blasts (En Anglais – Info lecteur)

Six people have died in landmine explosions in Hamar Weyene district, near the Somali presidential palace in the capital Mogadishu.

The remote controlled blasts on Thursday targeted a convoy of government soldiers from the nearby presidential palace as they were heading for Hamar Weyne, a Press TV correspondent quoted eyewitnesses as saying.

There were reportedly three government officers and two guards among the dead, said a Somali official on conditions of anonymity.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attacks which followed weeks of relative calm in the district of the troubled Somali capital.

Mogadishu has traditionally been the center of conflict between government forces and armed rebels.

According to a Somali military spokesman, Dahir Mohamed Hirsi, many Somali soldiers who were seriously injured in clashes with insurgents have been sent to Nairobi, Kenya.

On Wednesday, the government inked a power-sharing deal with an opposition group, the Alliance for Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS), in Djibouti. The deal envisages the formation of a unity government and an enormous parliament with 550 seats, 200 of which will be filled by the opposition and 75 by members of Somalia’s civil society.

It also extends the Transitional Federal Government’s term, which expires early next year, to three years.