Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Somali blasts leave dozens dead
Car-bombers strike capital amid planning of terror fight
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Two car bombs exploded Saturday at a busy junction in Somalia’s capital near key government offices, leaving “scores of civilian casualties” including children, national police said. One hospital worker counted at least 30 bodies.
The attack in Mogadishu occurred on a day when senior officials were meeting to discuss combating violent extremism, especially by the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabab group that often targets the capital. It also came five years after another large blast in the same location killed over 500 people.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. AlShabab rarely claims attacks with large numbers of civilians killed, as in the 2017 blast. But Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre blamed al-Shabab by name.
A volunteer at the Medina hospital, Hassan Osman, said “out of the total of at least 30 dead people brought to the hospital, the majority of them are women.”
At the hospital, frantic relatives peeked under plastic sheeting and into body bags, looking for loved ones. The Aamin ambulance service said they had collected at least 35 wounded.
One ambulance responding to the first attack was destroyed by the second blast, director Abdulkadir Adan added in a tweet.
“I was 100 meters away when the second blast occurred,” Abdirazak Hassan said. “I couldn’t count the bodies on the ground due to the [number of] fatalities.” He said the first blast hit the perimeter wall of the education ministry, where street vendors and money changers were located.
An Associated Press journalist at the scene said the second blast occurred in front of a busy restaurant during lunchtime. The blasts demolished several vehicles in an area of many restaurants and hotels. He saw “many” bodies and said they appeared to be civilians traveling on public transport.
The Somali Journalists Syndicate, citing colleagues and police, said one journalist was killed and two others wounded by the second blast while rushing to the scene of the first.
The attack occurred at Zobe junction, which was the scene of a large al-Shabab truck bombing in 2017 that killed more than 500 people.
Somalia’s government has been engaged in a high-profile new offensive against the extremist group that the United States has described as one of al-Qaida’s deadliest organizations. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has described it as “total war” against the extremists, who control large parts of central and southern Somalia and have been the target of scores of U.S. airstrikes in recent years.
The extremists have responded by killing prominent clan leaders in an apparent effort to dissuade support for that government offensive.
On Saturday, the prime minister said the attack would not dampen the public uprising against al- Shabab and again expressed the government’s determination to wipe out the extremist group.
In Washington, the Biden administration is weighing a request by Somalia that the United States loosen restrictions on its military drone strikes targeting al-Shabab militants in the troubled Horn of Africa nation, according to several U.S. officials.
President Joe Biden also recently redeployed 450 U.S. troops to Somalia, reversing former President Donald Trump’s abrupt withdrawal in January 2021.
But the Somali government wants U.S. military operators to be able to attack groups of al-Shabab militants who might pose a threat to Somali forces — even if they are not firing upon them at the moment, the officials said.
In a statement, National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson emphasized that the U.S. was trying to bolster stability in Somalia and counter alShabab not just through military force but by building the Somali government’s capacity and addressing humanitarian needs.
“As a part of this holistic approach, the U.S. military works to train and support Somali partners who are catalyzing offensive action against al-Shabab,” she said. Information for this article was contributed by Omar Faruk and Mohamed Sheikh Nor of The Associated Press and by Charlie Savage, Eric Schmitt and Abdi Latif Dahir of The New York Times.