MOGADISHU: At least nine people were killed in a coordinated string of terrorist attacks in the Somali capital Mogadishu, police said on Wednesday. Residents reported hearing a wave of powerful explosions that began shortly before midnight on Tuesday in the city’s south-east, followed by hours of gunfire with automatic weapons and shelling with mortar rounds.
“What we saw last night in Mogadishu shows that the fighter group Al Shabaab is still a potential threat to peace there after its military ejection from the capital in 2011,” former intelligence chief Ahmed Fiki said.
The attackers briefly took control of a police station in the city, according to a police spokesperson. Numerous buildings were destroyed in the violence. “Our home collapsed completely because of the blast and we have lost an elderly brother,” father-of-three Mohamud Ibrahim said. Two children have been confirmed among the dead.
According to the police, the attackers overran various checkpoints in order to enter Mogadishu. Car bombs were also used.
The hunt for the attackers is still ongoing, a police spokesman said early Wednesday.
Speaking via its mouthpiece Radio Andalus, the terrorist group Al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the multi pronged attack,considered one of the worst in recent years.
Al Shabaab claimed to have killed numerous soldiers and police officers. It also purportedly captured military equipment.
Somalia has been plagued by repeated attacks on security forces and civilians for years now. Al Shabaab control large parts of the country’s southern and central regions. The latest attack is unusual, however, because Al Shabaab normally targets the capital with lone suicide bombers.
Mogadishu police spokesman Abdifatah Aden said that the fighters had launched the attack on the police station and in another neighbourhood, Darusalam, in the city’s north-east. Speaking shortly after the attacks, he said security forces were exchanging gunfire with the militants and promised further updates, but did not respond to subsequent phone calls.
Al Shabaab have also recently made incursions outside the capital, including capturing a town in December in the semi-autonomous central state of Galmudug, residents said, a victory that underscored how the group was exploiting divisions between the central government and its erstwhile allies in other regions. – dpa
