Three attacks by extremists in Somalia and Kenya in 24 hours

MOGADISHU // At least thirteen people were killed in Kenya and Somalia in a series of strikes carried out by Al Shabab over 24 hours, a spokesman for the group said yesterday.

The first victim was a senior Somali intelligence officer who was shot dead by the group as he walked to a mosque on Monday in the Somali capital, Mogadishu. Al Shabab spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab also said the group was behind yesterday’s early morning attack on a hotel in the Kenyan border town of Mandera.

At least 12 people were killed, according to police, although Al Shabab put the toll at 15.

Abu Musab said the militants then drove a suicide lorry bomb into a base belonging to the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (Amisom) north of Mogadishu.

Neither Al Shabab nor the police gave casualty figures for that attack.

Al Shabab’s usual tactic is to ram the entrance of a target site so its fighters can storm inside, but a police officer in Beledweyne said no such assault took place yesterday. Al Shabab, which once controlled much of Somalia, wants to topple the western- backed government in Mogadishu and drive out Amisom peacekeepers made up of soldiers from Kenya, Djibouti, Uganda, Ethiopia and other African nations.

Al Shabab has often launched attacks in neighbouring Kenya, saying it will continue to do until Kenyan forces are withdrawn from Somalia. But Kenya’s government vowed not to be forced out of Somalia by Al Shabab, saying it saw the mission as a matter of national security.

The group’s most recent attacks came as Somalia prepares for parliamentary elections.

Once elected, the parliament will choose a new president to continue the slow reconstruction effort in a nation racked by more than two decades of conflict.