Ethiopian security services thwarted an Eritrea-backed terrorist attack on last week’s Africa Union summit, the Ethiopian News Agency said.
Explosives were confiscated after being transported from Djibouti to Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital and venue for the meeting, according to state-owned ENA.
Members of Ethiopian separatist group the Oromo Liberation Front and their collaborators were arrested, the Addis Ababa- based news agency said, without saying how it obtained theinformation.
During the summit, which ended Jan. 31, Dina Mufti, spokesman for the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry, dismissed the Australian Foreign Ministry’s warnings of an attack on the event attended by heads of states.
Suicide bombers from the al-Qaeda-linked Somali group Al Shabab struck Kampala, the Ugandan capital, two weeks before the last African Union summit, killing 74 people.
To contact the reporter on this story: William Davison in Addis Ababa via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net
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