The leader of Somalia’s breakaway self-declared state of Somaliland yesterday called for war against the hardline Shebaab rebels as the region marked one year since deadly suicide attacks.

Twenty-four people were killed in the October 29, 2008 multiple blasts that ripped through the presidential palace, Ethiopia’s diplomatic compound and the offices of the UN Development Programme in the region’s capital Hargeisa. Somaliland blamed the Al Qaeda-inspired Shebaab militia for the attacks.

“The attacks that hit Somaliland were aimed at undermining the existence of our statehood and we must be united to fight against the perpetrators of such incidents,” President Dahir Riyale Kahin told a gathering commemorating the events.

“We must go against those elements otherwise they will make our region like Mogadishu.”

Shebaab’s leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, aka Mukhtar Abu Zubair, hails from Somaliland.

The Shebaab, who control southern Somalia, have waged relentless battles against Somalia’s transitional government in the capital Mogadishu.

Unlike the rest of Somalia, Somaliland - a former British protectorate which broke away from the rump Somalia in 1991 - has been relatively peaceful.

Meanwhile, the leader of the Somali community in Kampala said yesterday he wants his nationals registered to identify attackers after last week’s threat by a Somali Islamist militia to strike the Ugandan capital.

“The purpose of this programme is security. So that if there are suspicious people who may want to harm Uganda we can identify them,” Mohamed Hassan Shaiya said.

The Shebaab threatened to attack Kampala and Bujumbura in retaliation to artillery fire by the African Union peacekeepers in Mogadishu after the rebels fired mortar shells at President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed’s plane last week.

Uganda and Burundi are the only countries that have deployed troops for the AU force in Somalia, where it has come under repeated attacks by the insurgents also waging war against Sharif’s government.

Kampala is home to between 10,000 and 15,000 Somalis. They will be required to register with the community’s officials, provide residency details and get IDs, Shaiya said.

A security official in charge of the district dominated by the Somalis welcomed the decision.