Terrorist attacks on two cities leave at least 5 dead
NAIROBI: Attacks in two of Somalia’s largest cities killed five people and wounded 16 others on Saturday, in the latest example of the chronic failure of the country’s security sector to crack down on terrorist groups.
In the capital, Mogadishu, a suicide car bomber targeted a tax collection centre in the Hamar Jajab district in the city’s southeast, the Somali Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism said in a statement. While security officers were able to stop the attacker from reaching the collection centre, the blast damaged a nearby wall and wounded six people, including police officers. The bomber died in the attack.
In Baidoa, the capital of the southwestern Bay region, a land mine detonated near a restaurant on the outskirts of the city, killing five people and wounding 10 others, government officials said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but alShabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda, has carried out similar assaults in the past.
“The Somali government condemns in the strongest terms the attacks against the civilians,” the statement from the ministry read.
The attacks come 11 days after alShabab claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing on a Turkish military base in Somalia. Known as Camp Turksom, the compound, Turkey’s biggest overseas military base, is used to train Somali forces and is part of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to strengthen his country’s strategic presence in the Horn of Africa.
In recent years, al-Shabab, which controls large swaths of south and central Somalia, has continued to gain strength, carrying out deadly attacks in both Somalia and Kenya. In late December, the group killed 82 people, including 16 university students, when it detonated an explosives-laden truck at a busy intersection in Mogadishu.
A week later, al-Shabab killed a US service member and two American military contractors when insurgents from the group overran a base in Kenya that houses US troops.
The devastating and almost daily attacks against civilians and public officials have put a strain on the Somali government. Despite a flurry of US drone strikes and a 20,000-strong African Union peacekeeping mission fighting al-Shabab, the Somali government has remained weak.