Militants in Somalia vow more attacks

“What is coming is worse and more bitter, with permission from Allah,’’ the group said, according to the Washington-based SITE Intelligence Group, a terrorist-monitoring firm.

Sheik Yusuf Mohamed Siad, state minister for defense in Somalia, said there were six more stolen UN vehicles unaccounted for and that authorities were monitoring the situation.

Al-Shabab, a powerful Islamist group with foreign fighters in its ranks, has claimed responsibility for Thursday’s violence and said it was to avenge a US commando raid on Monday that killed a key Al Qaeda operative, Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, in southern Somalia.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley condemned Thursday’s attack and said the United States would continue to support the Somali government.

“We reject violence and extremism as a solution to Somalia’s challenges,’’ Crowley said at a press briefing Thursday in Washington.

Somalia’s national security minister - who took the job after his predecessor was killed in a suicide attack in June - told reporters in Nairobi that his government has little capacity to “stop someone who is determined to die . . . But we have to make attempts to eliminate them.’’

Abdullahi Mohamed Ali added that the government is boosting security at key government and AU installations.

An African Union envoy, meanwhile, pleaded for more international aid to stabilize Somalia, which many fear is becoming a haven for Al Qaeda - a place for terrorists to train and plan attacks elsewhere.

“We need to get the international community to really come forward . . . we don’t have sufficient capacity,’’ said Nicolas Bwakira, the AU envoy to Somalia.

The peacekeeping force from the 53-nation AU has long lamented that it is undermanned. Out of a planned 8,000 troops, there are only about 5,000 soldiers from Uganda and Burundi.

Burundian Major General Juvenal Niyoyunguruza, the deputy commander, was killed in Thursday’s attack as he was about to depart Somalia and was introducing his successor, who survived.

The death toll from the twin suicide car bombings rose to 21 yesterday, including 17 peacekeepers, an AU spokesman said. The previous highest toll was 11 peacekeepers who died in February in an insurgent attack.