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BAIDOA, Somalia - A suspected suicide bomber drove a car into an Ethiopian military base near a hotel where Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi was staying on Wednesday, killing two soldiers in the blast, witnesses said.
"We could hear the loud explosion, when the car rammed into the base," Gedi spokesman Muse Kulow told Reuters. "The prime minister is safe but two soldiers were killed, along with the suicide bomber, and three Ethiopians were injured."
Gedi and President Abdullahi Yusuf had travelled to Baidoa to attend sessions of the Somali parliament. Their government is facing an insurgency led by Islamists whom they drove out of Mogadishu, with Ethiopian military help, at the end of 2006.
The Somali government and its Ethiopian allies have been attacked almost daily since early 2007 by mainly Islamist insurgents who say the government is illegitimate and propped up by foreign "invaders".
Most of the attacks have been in the capital Mogadishu, but there have also been several previous suicide blasts in Baidoa.
- REUTERS
