Somali government office bombed, two killed

Garissa: Unidentified attackers bombed a local government office in Somalia, killing two guards near the remote Kenyan border, officials said on Wednesday.

Nine other people were wounded in several blasts that struck the building late on Tuesday in Belet Hawa, Ahmed Mohamed Barkus, a local Somali government official told Reuters by telephone. Belet Hawa lies just across the border from Kenya.

The identity of the attackers was unclear, Barkus said, but the bombing took place just days after two Italian nuns and a Kenyan driver were kidnapped by Somali gunmen from the nearby border town of El Wak. Elders are negotiating for their release.

Somalia is plagued by an Islamist insurgency, feuding clan militias and gangs of bandits, and the violence often spills across the country's arid frontier into northeastern Kenya.