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Ethiopia spurns Somalia's call for help
22 June 2009
Islamist militiaman take pictures on their mobile telephones of some of the casualties of the heavy fighting in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on 17 June 2009. (PA)
The appeal by Speaker Sheikh Aden Mohamed Nur came after a week of serious violence in Somalia that culminated in a suicide bomb attack on 18 June in the town of Beledweyne which killed Omar Hashi Aden, Somalia's Minister of National Security, and a number of current and former overseas Somali diplomatic officials. At least 35 people were killed. Ethiopia said in rejecting the Somali call for assistance that any intervention would need an international mandate.