Eritrea bomb suspect admits ‘jihad’ attack planned from Sudan

ASMARA, June 23 (AFP) — A young Eritrean man has confessed on state television here to carrying out last month’s bomb attack in western Eritrea which killed five people, and said radicals based in Sudan had planned the operation.

The man, whose confession was shown on EriTv late on Tuesday, was identified as Segid Mohamed Kelifa Mentay Ali, born in 1983 in Sudan.

Several sources said Ali was arrested shortly after the May 25 bombing in Barentu, which wounded nearly 90 people and was blamed from early on in Asmara on radical groups based in Sudan.

The state television said his brother, identified by his nickname Jama’y, had also been arrested.

Ali was shown on television describing the planning of the attack and, using props, demonstrating how he made the bomb.

Ali said the blast was ordered and planned by the Sudan-based “jihad” — holy war, in Arabic — but did not specify whether he was referring to the Eritrean Islamic Jihad, an armed opposition group.

Information Minister Ali Abdu Ahmed told AFP early in June that the attackers had the support of the Tigre People’s Liberation Front, the majority party in Ethiopia’s ruling coalition.

Eritrea, which fought a bloody two-year border war with Ethiopia from May 1998, has accused the governments in Addis Ababa and Sudan of forming an “axis of belligerence” together with Yemen.

Ali also confessed to staging several other explosions in the western region, including a bombing on January 20 which targeted the camp of the UN mission to Ethiopia and Eritrea. He said “Abrahaley, an Ethiopian security agent” had ordered that attack.

Ali’s brother Jama’y was badly burned at Tesseney, near the Sudanese border in the west, on May 24 when an explosive charge he was carrying blew.

He also was shown on television Tuesday, with part of his body visibly burnt and his face hidden by bandatges.

EriTv was late on Wednesday to air the second part of the report on the Barentu bombing, which came as locals were celebrating Eritrea’s independence day.