Somali coup thwarted

Press, 10 April 1978, Page 6

Somali coup thwarted

NZPA Khartoum Tanks rolled through the streets of the Somali capital of Mogadishu after shooting was heard throughout the city yesterday morning, the Sudan news agency, Suna, reports. Radio Mogadishu, which went off the air during the gunfire, resumed broadcasting with quotations from the Koran and national songs, the agency said. “Shooting has stopped now but tanks rolled through the city streets,” the agency reported. It said the gunfire seemed to be from light weapons. From Nairobi it is reported that the Somali President, Major-General Mohammed Siad Barre, announced yesterday that the Army had foiled an attempted coup by a group of officers and men. The announcement was broadcast by Radio Mogadishu. General Siad Barre said in a 10-minute soeech that at 10 a,m. a group of ouicers and soldiers attempted to overthrow the Government but the national Army had crushed the attempt and those responsible were under arrest.

They would be put on trial in accordance with the law, he said. The President, who came to power after leading a coup in 1969, asked Somalis to be vigilant to ensure that security was preserved and not to be swayed by rumours by “imperialists and colonialists.” Somali guerrillas yesterday claimed to have killed 30 Cuban soldiers in an ambush on a military bus near the northern Ogaden town of Jijiga. “Danab,” the bulletin of the Western Somali Liberation Front, said the attack took place on Thursday.