Somalia bombing raises fear militants resurging

Truck bomb kills at least 79 in African nation’s worst attack since 2017.

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA — An explosives-laden truck blew up at a busy intersection in the Somali capital Saturday and killed at least 79 people, the latest sign of resurgent militant activity in a country plagued by an enduring strain of violent extremism.

A bus carrying university students to their campus was struck just before 8 a.m. by the blast, which left the streets littered with bodies and the mangled frames of vehicles. The attack, which also injured 149 people, was the worst in Somalia in more than two years.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion immediately fell on the Shabab, a terrorist group linked to al-Qaida, which controls large parts of the country and raises considerable funds through local taxation and extortion. Despite intensified American airstrikes and a long-running African Union offensive, the group has carried out deadly attacks not only in Somalia but also in neighboring Kenya and Uganda.

“Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that much progress has been made against combating what has become a very resilient and deadly insurgency,” said Murithi Mutiga, the Horn of Africa project director at the International Crisis Group, a research organization.

The attack — one of several this year in Mogadishu, including a gunbattle two weeks ago that killed five people at a well-known hotel — added to concerns about the abilities of Somali forces as African Union troops begin to withdraw from the Horn of Africa nation. The African Union peacekeeping operation has been active in Somalia since 2007, but Somali forces are set to assume responsibility for security in May. Six thousand to 7,000 American troops are stationed in Africa, with the largest numbers concentrated in the sub-Saharan region and in the

Horn of Africa. In Somalia, about 600 U.S. Special Operations forces are fighting the Shabab from small outposts alongside local troops.

The Pentagon is weighing whether to sharply reduce or pull out several hundred American troops stationed in West Africa as the first phase of a global reshuffling of United States forces. But Defense Department officials said it was less likely that troops would be withdrawn from Somalia because security in the country remains fraught.

Though violent extremist groups like the Islamic State also operate in Somalia, none except the Shabab has proved capable of repeated, large-scale attacks in the capital. The Shabab has also declared war on pro-Islamic State cells in Somalia, most of which operate at a distance from Mogadishu.

The Shabab has wreaked havoc in Somalia since 2006, when it began pursuing its goal of establishing an Islamic state. In areas it controls, the group has banned music, movies, shaving of beards and the internet. In recent years, the Shabab has suffered several critical setbacks. Yet the group has proved resilient.

FARAH ABDI WARSAME / ASSOCIATED PRESS Somalis salvage goods Saturday after shops were destroyed by a truck bomb in Mogadishu, Somalia, at a busy security checkpoint in the capital, killing at least 79.