MOGADISHU Somalia – In yet another deadly attack that rattled the Somali capital on Sunday the Islamist militant group Al Shabaab claimed a suicide
MOGADISHU, Somalia – In yet another deadly attack that rattled the Somali capital on Sunday, the Islamist militant group Al Shabaab claimed a suicide car bombing that such a local government office in Mogadishu.
According to local police in Mogadishu, a suicide car bomb struck a local government office in central Mogadishu on Sunday morning.
Police officer Mohamed Hussein said that the attack destroyed the Hawlwadag district office.
Further, a Quranic school, opposite the targetted structure which was open at the time of the blast, and had several children inside, also suffered damage in the blast.
The attack reportedly blew off the roof of a mosque and left several houses nearby damaged.
Hussein further confirmed that six people were killed and over 12 others were injured in the explosion.
Officials also said that both soldiers and civilians were killed in the suicide bombing.
Initially, the director of the Amin ambulance service was quoted as saying that at least 14 people were injured, including 6 children.
Later in the day, the deadly Islamist militant group Al Shabaab claimed the attack on Hawlwadag district office.
Abdiasis Abu Musab, Al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, said in a statement that the group had carried out the attack.
Musab said, “We are behind the suicide attack. We targeted the district office in which there was a meeting. We killed 10 people so far, we shall give details later.”
Somalia has witnessed lawlessness and violence since 1991, when dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled.
Al Shabaab began an insurgency in Somalia a decade ago and regularly orchestrates acts of terrorism throughout the country and particularly in the city of Mogadishu.
It was pushed out of Mogadishu in 2011 by Somali troops backed by African Union soldiers.
The Islamist group, which was ranked as the deadliest Islamist extremist group in Africa in 2016, is fighting to dislodge a Western-backed central government protected by the African Union-mandated peace-keeping force AMISOM, which defends it.
The group wants to install its own government based on its strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.
