Al-Shabaab accused of targeting civilians
Faisal Isse | Xinhua
The remains of a suicide bomber who killed four Somali government soldiers and wounded 12 others after blowing himself up at the Somali army headquarters in Mogadishu on November 30, 2011.
What you need to know:
- Eight die as suicide attacker blows himself up at Mogadishu army headquarters
Al-Shabaab was on Wednesday accused of targeting civilians after eight people were killed in two attacks in Mogadishu.
The Transitional Federal Government accused the militants of targeting the “weak and defenceless”.
Media reports in Mogadishu indicated that at least four soldiers were killed and 12 wounded when a suicide bomber attacked the army headquarters in the Somali capital.
Eyewitnesses said the bomber, in government military fatigues, blew himself up in the compound.
In the second attack, at least four people died and six others were wounded in an explosion near a police station.
The blast, suspected to have been caused by a landmine, occurred as a group of women were cleaning up the area, district commissioner Abdulle Ali Hilowle said.
At least a dozen containers with explosive devices have been spotted in the city and defused.
“Al-Shabaab has intensified its bombings,” said National Security Agency director Ahmed Moalim Fiqi.
The bombs are hidden in all sorts of containers.
“The Al-Shabaab is hiding bombs in the city in milk containers, tomato paste containers and shopping bags,” he said.
On Tuesday, children found a bag in central Mogadishu and were playing with it when it exploded, killing one and wounding three others.
Somalia’s Information minister Abdulkadir Hussein Mohamed described the bombings as the “cowardly actions of desperate and anti-Islamic criminals targeting the weak and defenceless, like ill people in hospitals and children”.
Meanwhile, Al-Shabaab militants on Tuesday sliced off an arm and a leg each from two youths accused of theft.
The event, at Lafole settlement, 22 km south of Mogadishu, took place in front of a crowd as the judge of the Al-Shabaab court in the area, Sheikh Mohamed Abdurahman Abdi, named the youth as Idris Abdullahi Mohamed, 21, and Saeed Hussein Abdi, 24.
Each of the youngsters lost a right hand and a left leg.
“The sentence and the execution are consistent with Sharia (Islamic laws) for robbery,” announced the judge.