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Tag: mogadishu
7 U.N. Workers Dead As Bomb Blast Rocks Somalia’s Puntland

7 U.N. Workers Dead As Bomb Blast Rocks Somalia’s Puntland

By Mohamed Odowa and Kristin Palitza, dpa (TNS)

MOGADISHU — Seven U.N. workers were killed when Islamist militants planted a bomb in a U.N. Children’s Fund bus in Somalia’s Puntland state, local police said by phone on Monday.

Somali authorities suspected the attack was caused by a suicide bomber traveling inside the bus in Garowe, the capital of Puntland, a semi-autonomous region of Somalia with a government that works largely independently of the central administration.

Initially, authorities had reported 10 deaths but later corrected the number to seven.

“It took us time to know the exact number of people who were traveling in the bus,” said police officer Mohamed Ali.

Among the victims were three U.N. staff members from Somalia, two from Kenya and one each from Uganda and Afghanistan, according to the hospital in Garowe.

“We believe that the person who blew himself up inside the U.N. bus was an al-Shabab insider who was also working for U.N. here in Garowe,” said Garowe police chief Ahmed Abdullahi Samatar Layli.

However, sources within Puntland’s intelligence agency, who asked not to be identified, said that the bomb was planted under the seat of a UNICEF bus and detonated by remote control.

The blast occurred as the bus was entering the headquarters of the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, said police.

Police also reported 10 people wounded in the blast.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the attack and called for security for humanitarian workers and accountability for the perpetrators.

“The men and women who bring humanitarian action to light are an inspiration to us all,” Ban said. “Targeting such brave and dedicated individuals for violence is an attack on us all.”

The U.N. Security Council said it was “outraged” by “this appalling act” and reiterated its commitment to fighting terrorism in all its forms.

“The horrific attack on our UNICEF colleagues today in northern Somalia is an assault not only on them but on the people they served,” UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake said in a statement.

“Our continuing work for the most vulnerable children and their families in Somalia will be a fitting tribute to those we have lost,” said Lake.

“I condemn (the) attack this morning on U.N. in Garowe. Shocked and appalled by loss of life,” U.N. special representative for Somalia, Nick Kay, said on Twitter.

Puntland police initially suspected the attack to be a suicide car bombing that was targeting a U.N. building.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the bombing, according to pro-militant website somalimemo.net, citing an unnamed al-Shabab official.

The terrorist group regularly stages attacks against government and international agencies.

(c)2015 Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (Hamburg, Germany), Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC

AFP Photo/Jacques Demarthon

Suicide Car Bomber Rocks Somalia’s Presidential Palace

Suicide Car Bomber Rocks Somalia’s Presidential Palace

By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times

JOHANNESBURG — A suicide car bomber attacked the Somali presidential palace in Mogadishu on Friday, triggering a massive explosion, before about 10 heavily armed gunmen jumped out of two more vehicles and opened fire.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamed, whose residence and office is in the presidential palace compound, known as Villa Somalia, was unharmed.

Al-Shabab, the al-Qaida-linked Somali terror group that carried out last year’s attack on a shopping mall in Kenya, claimed responsibility for the attack, Reuters reported.

Abdikarim Hussein, Somali security minister, said security forces contained the attack and that all the militants were killed or arrested.

Members of the security forces guarding the compound were also reportedly among the dead, according to security officials. There were unconfirmed reports an official in the prime minister’s office and a former intelligence chief were killed in the attack.

The attack was the latest in a series of recent suicide missions bombings in the Somali capital, where the government is trying to restore stability after decades of chaos.

The United Nations Special Representative for Somalia, Nicholas Kay, confirmed the attack in a tweet.

“President just called me to say he’s unharmed. Attack on Villa Somalia had failed. Sadly some lives lost,” he said.

Kay condemned the terror attack in a later statement. “This is another desperate and criminal act which does nothing but harm to the people of Somalia,” said Kay. “The Somali people are tired of shootings, bombings and killings. It’s time for a new chapter in Somalia’s history and we cannot allow a slide back at this critical time.”

“The U.N. and the international community remain steadfast in their determination to see a new Somalia rise, and continue to support Somalia in its quest to stabilize and rebuild institutions,” he added.

It’s not the first attack on the president. In 2012, several suicide bombers blew themselves up as he addressed a press conference at a Mogadishu hotel.

Al-Shabab, which controlled much of the country until it was pushed out of the capital, Mogadishu, in 2011, has since been waging a guerrilla campaign of suicide bombings, drive-by shootings, assassinations and other attacks.

Reuters quoted a police officer at the scene Friday, Hussein Farah, saying 10 heavily armed gunmen dressed in military uniforms and the suicide bomber were involved in the attack.

“All the Shabab fighters perished, some blew up themselves while others were shot dead. Several government guards also died. Now the fighting is over, and scattered on the scene is human flesh and blood,” he said.

Local media reported that some of the gunmen reached a mosque in the compound where government officials were attending Friday prayers.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

CIA Operates Secret Training Facility And Prison In Somalia

The convoluted relationship between the U.S. and Somalia — which has quietly become a central front in the ever-expanding military campaign against Al Qaeda — just got even messier. According to a report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation, U.S. intelligence forces have built a training facility and a secret prison in the capital of Mogadishu. Former prisoners, some of whom spent more than a year in the underground prison facility, reported deplorable, unsanitary conditions and interrogations by Somali, American and French intelligence agents. Because U.S. officials have directly hired and paid the Somali operatives who run the site, it is what one prisoner’s lawyer calls “a decentralized, out-sourced Guantanamo Bay in central Mogadishu.”

Scahill writes that the prison is “buried in the basement of Somalia’s National Security Agency (NSA) headquarters, where prisoners suspected of being Shabab [an Islamic militant group with close ties to Al Qaeda] members or of having links to the group are held. Some of the prisoners have been snatched off the streets of Kenya and rendered by plane to Mogadishu.”