Somali Interior Minister Abdishakur Sheikh Hassan was seriously wounded yesterday in a suicide attack at his home, apparently carried out by a woman, senior security officials told AFP.

“There was an attack at the minister’s home during which a suicide attacker detonated the explosives that they were carrying,” one senior security official, Mohamed Ali, told AFP.

“According to the preliminary information that we have, the bomber was a woman.”

A number of other people were also wounded in the explosion which happened as the minister hosted a meeting with other colleagues, said a second official, Ibrahim Siyad.

The suicide attack was the third in Mogadishu in less than two weeks.

Somalia’s Islamist Shebab rebels – currently facing an unprecedented offensive launched by the country’s weak, foreign-backed transitional government – claimed responsibility for the two previous attacks.

On Thursday, one civilian was killed at the port of Mogadishu by blasts set off by two suicide bombers.

On May 30, two Ugandan soldiers attached to the African Union’s peacekeeping mission in Mogadishu (AMISOM) were killed on their base in the south of the city in an attack carried out by at least three people.

The Shebab have suffered serious military setbacks during the massive offensive launched in February by the government and backed by AMISOM.

Struggling to retake their lost positions through conventional warfare, the Shebab decided to boost their suicide attacks, according to security sources.

Shebab operatives and several Al-Qaeda-linked foreigners fighting in Somalia, have vowed in public statements that they will “soon avenge the death of (their) leader Osama bin Laden”, killed in Pakistan on May 2 by US special forces.

The Shebab swore allegiance to Al-Qaeda in 2002.