Somali Suicide Bombers Strike UN Compound

Suicide bombers struck a UN compound and several other targets in northern Somalia today, killing at least 22 people, as talks about Somalia's political crisis began in neighboring Kenya, officials said. "We are still counting the bodies," said a spokesman for the breakaway republic of Somaliland, where bombers hit the UN compound, the Ethiopian consulate, and the presidential palace.

Somaliland President Dahir Riyale Kahin's secretary died in the blast, but the president was not hurt, the spokesman said. Suicide bombers also attacked two intelligence facilities in the northern Somali region of Puntland. No one immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but in the past Islamist rebels have launched such strikes to coincide with UN-led efforts to end the turmoil in the Horn of Africa nation.   (More Somalia stories.)