Somalia death toll rises to 30

North Somali authorities have arrested a prominent local sheikh after a wave of suicide attacks that killed at least 30 people.

There was still no clear claim of responsibility for the five bombs in Puntland and Somaliland regions on Wednesday.

Twenty people died at Ethiopia's embassy in Hargeisa, capital of the breakaway Somaliland region, and at least five were killed in synchronised blasts at the local president's office and a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) building there.

Two of the dead were UN staff members, a driver and a security adviser. Six staff members were also injured in the blast that blew off the roofs of the UN compound.

"While Somalia is one of the most dangerous places in the world for aid workers, Hargeisa has been relatively stable and consequently many United Nations staff were stationed there," UN humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden said.

Medical staff in Bosasso port, in semi-autonomous Puntland, said two soldiers wounded by one of the car bombs, at an intelligence headquarters, died overnight, bringing to at least five the victims of that strike.

Suspicion has fallen on Islamist insurgents fighting the Somali government and its Ethiopian military allies.

Puntland officials said they arrested a local cleric, Sheikh Mohamud Ismail, and in Somaliland, authorities said they had made "several arrests".

Local militant group al Shabaab posted a video of a suicide bomber on the Internet but did not explicitly link it to the attacks.

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