SOMALIA: Suicide car bomb kills 10 in Mogadishu

Record ID: 489152

  • Title: SOMALIA: Suicide car bomb kills 10 in Mogadishu
  • Date: 27th February 2014
  • Summary: MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (FEBRUARY 27, 2014) (REUTERS) GENERAL VIEW OF SCENE OF ATTACK, PEOPLE MILLING AROUND SEVERAL PEOPLE LOOKING AT BODY ON GROUND VARIOUS OF MANGLED WRECK OF CAR USED IN ATTACK GENERAL VIEW OF THE TEA SHOP, DAMAGED ROOF (SOUNDBITE) (English) DISTRICT COMMISSIONER, MOGADISHU, ABDULLAHI HASSAN, SAYING: "More than eight people have died and many others wounded
  • Embargoed: 14th March 2014 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Somalia
  • Country: Somalia
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA14H03U6FV6ZWSNL17E1HD8FAG
  • Story Text: An Islamist militant suicide bomber drove a car into a Mogadishu cafe frequented by members of the security forces on Thursday, killing at least 10 people and blowing the place to bits.
    Al Shabaab said it had carried out the attack, which followed an assault by its fighters on the president's palace in the Somali capital last week.
    Although Al Shabaab was driven out of the capital and other major centres in the past two years, it still controls swathes of the countryside and mostly smaller towns. It has continued to wage a bombing campaign in Mogadishu, harming government efforts to exert control over areas it governs.
    The District Commissioner of Mogadishu, Abdullahi Hassan said at least 8 people died at the tea shop, frequently used by members of the security as it is near their compound in the battered capital.
    "More than eight people have died and many others wounded including some soldiers after a suicide bomber drove his car towards one of the National Security agency cars that was driving past this place. As a result they have killed a lot innocent people who were sitting at this tea shop," he said.
    Police later updated the number of those killed to ten.
    Somalia, which is slowly emerging from two decades of conflict and anarchy, is struggling to rebuild its national security forces. For now, the government still largely relies on an African peacekeeping force, AMISOM.
    Somalia's African neighbours and Western nations worry that the space still controlled by al Qaeda-aligned al Shabaab provides a launch pad for broader operations. The group staged a raid on a Nairobi shopping mall last year, killing 67 people.
    AMISOM has just been reinforced with Ethiopian troops, taking it to about 22,000 soldiers, and is expected to launch a new campaign against al Shabaab strongholds soon.
    Driving al Shabaab out of its strongholds could improve aid access in a nation where 3 million people require humanitarian assistance and a third are in dire need. But U.N. officials worry an offensive now could disrupt the planting season and so hurt harvests in Somalia, which suffered a famine 2011.
    Al Qaeda-allied al Shabaab ruled most of southern Somalia from 2006 until 2011 when forces from other African nations sent by the African Union drove them out of Mogadishu and then expelled them from most urban centres.
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