Somalia’s Islamist rebel group bombed African peacekeepers and government vehicles yesterday in twin attacks that left at least 12 civilians dead, marking al Shabaab’s first major attack since promising revenge for the killing of its leader last week.
The blasts within an hour of each other on the same road southwest of Mogadishu targeted a convoy of African Union (AU) troops and a Somali government convoy of police and national security forces. Civilian buses near the first blast were hit.
“We are behind the two car bombs driven by mujahideen [fighters],” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, spokesman for al Shabaab’s military operations, said.
Al Shabaab, which wants to impose its strict version of Islam on Somalia, appointed a new leader at the weekend after US missiles killed his predecessor Ahmed Godane and said the group’s enemies would reap “bitter fruits” of revenge. Abdikadir Mohamed Sidi, governor of the Lower Shabelle region south of Mogadishu, told Reuters by telephone he was driving behind the AU convoy at the time of the first blast and saw three civilian vehicles in the same area.
He said more than 12 people were killed in one minibus.
Two African Union soldiers were injured in that attack, about 20 kilometres from the capital. The rebels said four Americans and a South American were among those killed in the attack on the AU convoy. There was no official confirmation.
Al Shabaab’s figures and details it gives of those killed often differ markedly from official accounts.
It was al Shabaab’s first major attack since promising revenge for the killing of its leader
“It is a disaster. The flesh of the people was mixed up and stuck to the tarmac road and the debris of the vehicle,” said Major Hussein Ahmed, a senior police officer, describing the scene near the African Union convoy where minibuses were hit.
More than two dozen others were wounded in that first blast, including two African soldiers, the governor said. A Reuters witness saw an AU vehicle being towed and the burned remains of passengers inside one of the minibuses.
At least two people were injured in the second blast, according to major Hussein Ahmed.
Following Godane’s death last week, rebels pledged allegiance to their new leader, Sheikh Ahmed Umar Abu Ubaida.