Somalia ? Ethiopian troops fired Monday at a would-be suicide bomber speeding toward their base, blowing up the car and killing the bomber and a civilian standing nearby, officials said.

“This was a terrorist act,” Deputy Defense Minister Salad Ali Jelle said.

The attack came one day after a suicide car bomber drove through a roadblock guarding the prime minister’s home and rammed the vehicle into a wall, killing seven people. The prime minister was unharmed.

The violence in the Somali capital of Mogadishu has undermined the government’s claims to have defeated Islamic insurgents who have promised an Iraq-style guerrilla war. The battles have pitted the government and Ethiopian troops propping it up against clan rivals and Islamic insurgents.

Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi said Monday that the attack targeting him over the weekend was meant to disrupt a peace and reconciliation conference planned for later this month.

“The whole objective of the insurgents or the terrorists is to stop or delay the national reconciliation conference. We will not do it. We will continue,” Gedi said outside his home, which was damaged in Sunday’s blast. “We will try to pacify the capital city before the conference.”

Jelle has blamed the attack on “terrorists linked to al-Qaida.”