Mogadishu, Somalia ? The president of Somalia’s interim government narrowly escaped a suicide bomber Monday – a new tactic in a troubled land where an Islamic militia is vying for power. The leader’s brother and 10 others died in the blast and a subsequent gunbattle.

The foreign minister said the attack in Baidoa, along with the slaying of an Italian nun in the capital, Mogadishu, Sunday, had “the hallmarks of al-Qaida.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing in Baidoa, the only town controlled by the virtually powerless government, which was formed in 2004 with U.N. help in hopes of restoring order after years of lawlessness in this Horn of Africa nation.

An increasingly powerful hard-line Islamic movement – accused by the U.S. of having links with al-Qaida – seized the capital in June and now controls much of the country’s south.

“This is the first suicide bomber in Somalia,” Foreign Minister Ismail Mohamed Hurre told The Associated Press in neighboring Kenya. “This has the fingerprints of al-Qaida all over it.”