Blast kills 10 at Somali Prime Minister's rally

Somalia's prime minister escaped unharmed in a blast that killed 10 and injured 60 as supporters turned out for a rally in Mogadishu's soccer stadium today.

Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi described the explosion as an accident. Another government official said investigators were looking into the cause and who might have been behind a blast that underlined the security fears that have kept Gedi's government from returning from exile in Kenya.

"What happened was an accident, which will not deter us and the international community from continuing our common endeavour to relocating the government back to Somalia," Gedi told reporters.

The government has sat in Kenya since it was formed in 2004 and is opposed by Islamic extremists and some of the country's dozens of warlords. Somalia has been without a central government since 1991, when clan-based warlords overthrew dictator Mohamed Siad Barre and then turned their weapons on each other.

Today's blast happened about 10 metres from Gedi, Deputy Parliament Speaker Ismail Ilmi Boqore, who was with Gedi at the time, said. Boqore said none of the diplomats or government officials who accompanied Gedi to the rally was harmed.

"We are still investigating what caused the explosion, who was behind it and the exact number of the casualties of the day," said Col Abdi Hassan Awale, after giving journalists the initial casualty figures of seven dead.

"Most of the people were injured in what was a virtual stampede," Awale said. "Others sustained injury while jumping over the walls of the stadium."

Three other people died in Medina Hospital after they were brought from the stadium with injuries, said the hospital's Dr Abdi Ibrahim Jiya.

Checks to Mogadishu hospitals put the number of injured at 60 people.

Hundreds of people had gathered in the stadium to hear Gedi.

Gedi arrived in Somalia on Friday for his first trip home since he took office. Hundreds of people had cheered Gedi when he arrived at the airport, where members of Somalia's former military formed a guard of honour for him. Trumpets sounded and the Somali national anthem played.

President Abdulahi Yusuf Ahmed has called on the African Union to send 20,000 peacekeepers to secure Somalia and to guarantee the new government's safety and disarm the militias that currently roam the country with impunity. So far the AU has only offered to send a few thousand troops