Al Shabab militants launch suicide attack
Extremists killed after bid to bomb military base fails
MOGADISHU // Al Shabab militants yesterday launched a suicide attack against a military intelligence and training base in Somalia’s capital, detonating a car bomb before attempting to storm the building.
The interior ministry said the three attackers, one of them a suicide bomber, were all killed in the raid, and that security forces suffered no casualties. A spokesman for the Al Qaeda-affiliated militants confirmed they carried out the attack, Somali media reports said. Witnesses near the base, which belongs to the internationally-backed government’s National Intelligence and Security Agency (Nisa), reported an explosion followed by gunfire.
“There was an explosion and in seconds gunfire broke out. We cannot go outside the house because of the shooting,” said Abdulahi Yare, a resident who lives near the forces base.
In a brief statement, Nisa said the attack had failed. “It was thwarted by our forces. None of our buildings nor bases were entered,” it said.
Somali officials displayed three bodies after the attack, which came at the start of Ramadan – a period when Al Shabab, which is fighting to topple the Mogadishu government, has in the past intensified attacks.
In Kenya, three soldiers were wounded yesterday when their lorry hit a makeshift bomb that police said had been planted by Al Shabab.
The blast took place in the same region – Lamu County on Kenya’s northern coast – where last Sunday Al Shabab fighters killed two soldiers during an attack on a military base. Troops repelled the attack, killing 11 militants. On Saturday, suspected Al Shabab militants shot and killed a government administrator in the country’s restive north-east, police said. Mohammed Barre Abdullahi, a local chief in Wajir, close to the Somali border, was shot dead after evening prayers at a mosque.