Tag: al Shabaab

A suicide bomber killed at least 13 people on Saturday outside a restaurant popular with Ethiopian and Somali troops in the town of Baladweyne in central Somalia, local officials said.

More than 10 people were also wounded in the explosion near a military base, local legislator Dahir Amin Jesow told Reuters by telephone from Baladweyne.

Reports said the bomber had strapped explosives around his chest.

“A man with an explosives jacket entered unexpectedly in the tea shop where soldiers and civilians sat and blew himself up,’’ said local elder Ahmed Nur, speaking from the scene of the blast.

“I can see the bodies of several soldiers being carried out, but I cannot make out whether they were dead or injured.’’

However, no one has immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.

Ethiopian troops have been fighting Islamist militants in neighbouring Somalia for much of the past decade.

It waged an ill-fated war in Somalia in 2006 to 2009 and sent troops across the border again in 2011.

Kenyan MPs have started an investigation into alleged intelligence failings over the deadly Westgate shopping centre attack.

The head of the parliament’s defence committee says “people need to know the exact lapses in the security system.”

There are reports the NIS intelligence agency issued warnings a year ago.

BBC recalls that some 67 people were killed and many injured after al-Shabab militants stormed the Westgate centre in the capital Nairobi on September 21.

Kenya’s Red Cross says the number of people still believed to be missing is 39, down from an earlier figure of 61.

Five militants were killed by the security forces during the four-day siege and 10 people have since been arrested, the authorities say.

Al-Shabab, a Somali Islamist group, said the attack was in retaliation for Kenya’s military involvement in Somalia.

Security sources have told the BBC that the militants hired a shop there in the weeks leading up to the siege.

Gunfire and explosions sounded on Monday from the Nairobi mall where militants from Somalia’s al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group threatened to kill hostages on the third day of a raid in which at least 68 have already died.

Reuters journalists near the up market Westgate complex heard sporadic shots and also heavy bursts of rifle fire and muffled blasts on at least two occasions after daybreak.

Kenyan troops moved around outside the building. A Kenyan Red Cross official, Abbas Guled, said there had been clashes inside the building.

But there was no indications of the fate of people whom the authorities had said on Sunday were being held by 10 to 15 gunmen – and possibly women inside a large supermarket.

An al Shabaab spokesman warned that the Islamists would kill hostages if Kenyan security forces, who were being assisted by Western and Israeli experts, tried to storm their position.

“Israelis and Kenyan forces have tried to enter Westgate by force but they could not,” Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage said in an audio statement posted online. “The mujahideen will kill the hostages if the enemies use force.”

Security forces had secured most of the complex by Sunday, freeing many people who had hidden in terror. Though they hoped for a quick solution, rescuing those held will be difficult.

Survivors’ tales of Saturday’s military-style lunchtime assault by squads of attackers hurling grenades and spraying automatic fire, has left little doubt the hostage-takers are willing to kill.

Previous such raids around the world suggest they may also be ready to die with their captives.