MOGADISHU (Sh. M. Network)--Roadside bomb injured Somalia’s interior minister Sheik Abdulkadir Ali Omar and killed his secretary near his house in Bakara market in Mogadishu, witnesses and officials told Shabelle Media on Thursday.

Witnesses said the minister was slightly injured after the bomb targeted him near his house in Bakaro market.

Sheik Abdulkadir is a former Islamist leader; he was the deputy chairman of the Islamic Courts Union, once chaired by Somali president Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed. He is also a close associate with the president.

“We know each other and we all live in Mogadishu, but I do not want to say which who,” said Abdulkadir Ali Omar, the interior minister in a press conference in Mogadishu.

No group has claimed the responsibility for the attack yet, but many insurgent groups vowed to continue fighting against the new government led by president Sharif Sheik Ahmed and the African Union peace keepers.