ADDIS ABABA, Jan 26 (Reuters) - The
Australian foreign ministry has warned that extremists are planning bomb
attacks on Ethiopia's capital Addis Ababa during an African Union summit there
starting this week.
A Western diplomat in Addis Ababa
said the information his colleagues had was that Somali militants might be
planning attacks on the city.
Ethiopia invaded Somalia in late
2006 to oust an Islamist administration based in the capital Mogadishu, driving
the Islamists into southern Somalia, where they regrouped and launched an
insurgency against the new government.
Ethiopia withdrew its troops in
early 2009 but the insurgency is still raging and the government, though
supported by Western nations, the United Nations and the African Union,
controls little territory.
Australia's Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade updated its travel advice for Ethiopia on its website on
Tuesday to include the following warning:
"According to credible
information, extremists are planning to bomb unspecified locations within Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia, during the Africa Union Summit."
No further information was
immediately available.
Al Shabaab, the biggest militant
group in Somalia, has carried out attacks outside its own country in the past.
In July 2010 the group said it had
carried out two bomb attacks in Uganda, killing 74 soccer fans watching the
football World Cup final on television in a restaurant and a rugby club in the
capital Kampala.
Al Shabaab threatened to carry out
further attacks on Uganda and Burundi unless the two nations withdrew their
troops from the AU peacekeeping force protecting the government in Mogadishu.
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