Al-Shabaab strike Somalia killing 6, injuring 15

A suicide bomber executed a car bomb attack killing six and injuring 15 others in a targeted strike on government offices in Mogadishu, Garowe Online reported yesterday.

Three Somali soldiers were among those killed while they tried to stop a speeding vehicle as it approached them before it detonated around 9am local time. The gates of the provincial office of Howlwadag district were ripped though,while nearby buildings were also damaged.

The injured, including women and children from a nearby school, were rushed to a nearby hospital for emergency treatment. “We heard a huge explosion as the students were in their morning class”, Abdisalam Hassan Abdi, a teacher, said. Adding: “The whole area was devastated by the car bomb.”

Read: Somalia’s Al-Shabaab says it storms military base, kills 27 troops

Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack through one of its official media channel, Andalus Radio. “We are behind the suicide attack. We targeted the district office in which there was a meeting. We killed 10 people so far, we shall give details later.”

https://twitter.com/adancabdulle/status/1036289266102489088

The Al-Shabaab group often strikes government targets in densely populated areas across Somalia. The group is battling to topple the central government and impose its rule based on its own strict interpretation of Islamic law. It has killed thousands of Somalis and hundreds of civilians across East Africa in a decade-long insurgency.

Since 2012, the group pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda, attracting a counter-terrorism air strike campaign by the US.

Read: Al Shabaab fighters seize town in central Somalia – residents

The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), an international consortium which calls itself “the collective voice of the Muslim world” based in Saudi Arabia, condemned the attack yesterday, saying it undermines “peace and security in Somalia”, reaffirming the need to increase “international partnership to counter the menace of terrorism”.

Early last month, Al-Shabaab killed three other Somali soldiers in Afgoye district, a town 30 kilometres to the north west of the capital, Mogadishu. Last year in October, Al-Shabaab launched a brutal suicide bomb attack in Mogadishu killing over 500 people, and leaving many injured.

The uptick in political violence has led the United Nations to delay the withdrawal of African Union Mission troops from Somalia. The UN said the recent attacks in Somalia underscored the “deficiencies” in the capacity of the Somali National Army (SNA) in dealing with security threats.