The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Somalia

  • Car bomb kills 10 in Somalia

    A car bomb exploded near the presidential palace in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Monday, killing at least 10 people in a blast that appeared to target senior government officials, police said.

    The suicide attacker detonated explosives while driving along a boulevard that runs between the palace and the national theatre.

    A route lined by tearooms that were engulfed in fire moments after the blast, senior police officer Abdiqadir Mohamud said.

    A public minibus driving along the road burst into flames.

    “The suicide car bomber targeted a senior national security officer whose car was passing near the theatre,’’ Mohamud told Reuters.

    “Most of the people who died on board the minibus were civilians. This public vehicle coincidentally came between the government car and the car bomb when it was hit. Littered in the scene are human hands and flesh.’’

    Security in Mogadishu has improved greatly since a military offensive drove Islamist rebels allied to al Qaeda out of the city in August 2011.

    However, bombings and assassinations in Mogadishu, blamed on militants, still occur often.

    It was not clear who was behind Monday’s bombing.

     

     

  • Somalia wants Ugandan troops to remain

    Somalia wants Ugandan troops to remain

    Somalia’s prime minister said on Saturday that it could be a challenge for his country if Uganda followed through on a threat to withdraw troops fighting Islamist rebels in southern Somalia.

    Uganda’s foreign affairs ministry said earlier that it would withdraw from peace keeping initiatives in Africa unless the United Nations amended a report accusing it of supporting rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Reuters reports.

    Somali Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon Saaid told Reuters in an interview that Somalia had not yet received any official communication from Uganda on the issue of withdrawing from the African Union force known as AMISOM.

    “We are not impressed with that message. We would like to work with AMISOM in that respect,” he said.

    “The Ugandans have contributed significantly and a lot, and this is now a critical moment and in light of that we are of the view, if the media reports turn out to be true, it may be a challenge.”

    Stung by accusations of support for Congo’s M23 rebel group, Uganda’s security minister said on Friday Kampala would tell the U.N. it was withdrawing its forces from military operations in Somalia and other regional hotspots.

    Uganda and its neighbour Rwanda have denied accusations contained in a leaked report by a U.N. Group of Experts that the two countries have helped the M23 rebels, whose warlord leader has been indicted by the International Criminal Court.

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  • Suicide bombers kill 15 in Somali capital

    Suicide bombers kill 15 in Somali capital

    Two suicide bombers walked into a restaurant in central Mogadishu and killed at least 15 people on Thursday, police said, highlighting the security challenges facing the country’s new president.

    There was no immediate claim of responsibility. However, suspicions will fall on the Islamist militant group al Shabaab which has carried out a campaign of suicide bombings since it withdrew from the capital last year under military pressure.

    The al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility for suicide bombings last week outside a hotel where President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was holding a news conference just two days into the job, an attack interpreted as a warning from the insurgents that they are far from defeated.

    Police spokesman General Abdullahi Barise told Reuters 15 people were killed in Thursday’s attack. A Reuters photographer saw several bodies, the severed heads of the two bombers and pools of blood on the floor.

    The blasts targeted The Village restaurant, owned by well-known Somali businessman Ahmed Jama, who had returned to his home country from London to set up business against the advice of friends.

    “My relatives, whom I created jobs for, have perished. My customers have perished. All innocent people. I cannot count them, their dead bodies are before me,” a distraught Jama told Reuters.

    Three local journalists were among the dead, including a reporter at the state-run Somali National Television, the National Union of Somali Journalists said.

    The al Shabaab-linked website www.somalimemo.net said in a statement that those killed “supported the infidel government” but stopped short of saying the group was behind the attack.