NEW ARMY CHIEF SURVIVES DEADLY CAR BOMB ATTACK
Somalia’s new military chief survived a suicide car bomb attack on Sunday that killed 13 people, police say.
Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Jimale had just been sworn into office and was travelling in a convoy with senior military officials when the bomb exploded near Somalia’s defence ministry compound in Mogadishu, police say.
Five soldiers and at least eight civilians travelling in a passing minibus were killed, said Capt. Mohamed Hussein, a senior Somali police officer.
Somalia’s Islamic extremist rebels, al-Shabab, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The bomb gave an explosive start to Jimale’s term as the chief of the Somali Na- tional Army.
He was appointed on Thursday by President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who declared Somalia a war zone. The president, who was elected in February, replaced his military and intelligence chiefs and instructed the army to prepare a new offensive against al- Shabab extremists. Mohamed also replaced the country’s police chief and Mogadishu’s mayor.
The shakeup is an attempt to improve the worsening security situation as al-Shabab steps up deadly bombings in the capital.
The Somali- American president gave al- Shabab members a 60- day amnesty period to surrender.