MOGADISHU — At least 10 people were killed on Saturday when
a suicide bomber struck makeshift kiosks in the Somali capital, hitting hours
after Al Shabaab militants attacked two National Army bases outside the city,
the government said.
اضافة اعلان
“A suicide bomber blew up himself under trees where poor
mothers sold tea, milk and (narcotic leaf) khat,” Information Ministry
spokesman Ismail Mukhtar Omar told Reuters, adding that more people were
wounded in the attack.
There was no immediate comment from the Al-Shabaab, which had
earlier claimed responsibility for the attacks on the Bariire and Awdhigle army
bases.
The army said earlier that there had been casualties on both
sides in those attacks, but it was now in control.
The bases, located about 100 km southwest of Mogadishu, were
struck by two explosions, witnesses said. A third explosion targeted a convoy
of troops rushing to the bases from the capital after the attack, they added.
Militants from Al Shabaab, which is linked to al-Qaeda, have
waged years of attacks and levied tolls on trade in a campaign to introduce
strict religious law.
Saturday’s attacks come amid heightened fears that the group
could seek to exploit vulnerabilities created by failure to hold a
parliamentary and presidential election, which was due in February.
Hussein Nur, a military officer, said the army lost
“several” soldiers in the attack on the bases, without giving a precise number.
The army sent in reinforcements from other stations, who
killed an unidentified number of attackers in the ensuing fight, he told
Reuters.
The army had taken control of both bases and the surrounding
area and “We are pursuing the militants in the surrounding jungle”, he said.
Al Shabaab said it had launched a vehicle-borne suicide bomb
attack on the Bariire base while simultaneously attacking the nearby Awdhigle
base with a car bomb and fighters, to prevent troops stationed there from
reinforcing Bariire.
“We overran Bariire base, burnt three military vehicles and
took two vehicles,” Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s spokesman for military
operations, told Reuters, referring to a brief occupation of Bariire.
A third vehicle-borne explosive device hit a convoy of
government troops racing from Mogadishu with reinforcements, he said. He also
said there had been casualties on both sides in the attacks.
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