Somalia's Islamic extremist rebels, al Shabab, say they carried out the bombing of a commercial passenger jet earlier this month that blew a hole in the fuselage, sucking out the suspected bomber and forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.

A suspected suicide bomber who blew a hole in the fuselage of a Daallo Airlines plane last week and forced it to make an emergency landing in Mogadishu was meant to be on a Turkish Airlines flight, the Daallo chief executive said.

Update: 6.05pm: SWAT teams are conducting floor-by- floor searches of the naval hospital.

A video purported to be by Somalia’s al Qaida-linked rebel group al-Shabab urged Muslims to attack shopping centres in the US, Canada, Britain and other Western countries.

As the World Press Photo exhibition opens in Ireland, Richard Fitzpatrick talks to some of the winning photographers about their amazing images.

ATHLETICS: Paul Robinson mixed with the world’s best milers in the Dream Mile at the Bislett Games in Oslo, Norway last night and came away with a new personal best of 3:54.77.

All-round great Ashton Eaton narrowly missed out on a world record in retaining his heptathlon title at the World Indoor Athletics Championships in Poland tonight.

At least 13 people have died after a suicide bomber detonated explosives inside a restaurant in a city north of the capital of Somalia.

Italy’s plea for help from fellow member states of the European Union to deal with the arrival of refugees to its southern shores must not go unheeded.

Yesterday, as Met Éireann issued a severe weather warning and as 3,000 schools closed in England and Wales because of snow, Australians were warned to prepare for temperatures greater even than the spectacular ones of recent weeks.

Britain moved to whip up international support for a new military and political strategy in Somalia to intensify pressure on al-Shabab militants and try to pull the failed Horn of Africa nation back from the grip of pirates and terrorists.

FACED with a barrage of criticism when it chose a panda as one of it’s 12 female “faces of the year 2011”, a haughty BBC spokesperson wondered what all the fuss was about.

THE US is building a ring of secret drone bases in the Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as part of an aggressive campaign against al-Qaida affiliates in Somalia and Yemen, the Washington Post reported yesterday.

FAMINE has spread into one more region of Somalia and more than 4 million Somalis now need aid, the United Nations said yesterday.

Famine has spread into another region of Somalia, leaving four million people in crisis, the United Nations said.

THE United Nations Human Rights Council should accept responsibility, on behalf of the world forum, for the famine spreading through eastern Africa, and should call for member countries’ cooperation to overcome the desperate food crisis there, experts said.

At least 10 Somalis, among them refugees, were killed during a firefight that broke out in Mogadishu when troops and residents looted truckloads of food meant for famine victims, two witnesses said.

THE UN and aid agencies are warning that the famine in Somalia will grow in size and severity unless the world community responds with more aid.

The famine in Somalia will grow in size and severity unless the world community responds with more aid, the UN and aid agencies warned today.

SOMALIA’S famine refugees, weakened by months of drought, yesterday began Islam’s punishing Ramadan fast amid the tents and shacks of the world’s largest refugee camp.

EMERGENCY food centres in drought-stricken eastern Africa are overwhelmed by thousands of starving people every day and mothers are forced to abandon their dead or dying children by the roadside, aid officials said.

AUSTRALIA urged the international community yesterday to rally behind the UN relief effort in the famine-struck Horn of Africa or risk hundreds of thousands of people starving to death.

FORMER president Mary Robinson will fly out to the drought-stricken Horn of Africa today to see first-hand the crisis affecting more than 10 million people.

The head of the United Nations refugee agency said drought-ridden Somalia was the “worst humanitarian disaster” in the world.

The horn of Africa is again in serious trouble, on the verge of massive famine, even worse than the famine that ravaged Ethiopia in the 1980s.

Libyan security forces today opened fired on mourners at a funeral for anti-government protesters in the eastern city of Benghazi.

The US said today it was considering its response to the hijack by Somali pirates of an American couple sailing the world with a yacht full of bibles.

Security forces in Libya and Yemen fired on pro-democracy demonstrators as the two hardline regimes struck back against the wave of protests that has already toppled autocrats in Egypt and Tunisia.

Fears are growing for four Americans whose yacht was captured a by pirates in the Indian Ocean off the Somali coast.

UP to two-thirds of a €16bn development fund into which charities such as Bono’s Product Red contribute is being eaten up through corruption, it has been claimed.

School of Blues

African leaders are pledging thousands of new troops for Somalia to fight al Qaida-linked militants responsible for the twin World Cup bombings that killed 76 people, and the US said it will help bankroll the military campaign.

Eleven suspected pirates were being flown to the United States to stand trial in alleged attacks on US naval vessels off the coast of Africa, officials said.

A MAN tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month carrying powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that could have caused an explosion in a case bearing chilling similarities to the terrorist plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner, officials told reporters yesterday.

A Somali national tried to board a commercial airliner in Mogadishu last month with powdered chemicals, liquid and a syringe that together could have caused an explosion, officials said today.

Somali pirates attacked the Maersk Alabama merchant ship again today just seven months after capturing its captain who had to be freed in a special forces operation.

A lack of political will, not troop shortages, is stopping European countries increasing their forces in Afghanistan, the EU's top military officer declared today.

Somali Islamist fighters today beheaded seven prisoners accused of abandoning the Muslim faith and spying for the government.

Navy commandos stormed a French sailboat held by pirates off the Somali coast in an assault triggered by threats the passengers would be executed.

Somalia’s parliament elected a moderate Islamist leader as the country’s new president early today, handing over the elusive task of stabilising a country wracked by violence and anarchy for nearly 20 years.

A leader of Somalia’s ousted Islamic movement rejected a United Nations-brokered peace deal between the government and an opposition alliance, vowing the militants would fight on.