3 (EUROPE PRESS)
At least twelve people have died, including two senior officials, and more than 20 have been injured due to a double attack perpetrated on Monday at a military base located in the Somali city of Beledueine, capital of the Hiiraan region (center), as confirmed by the authorities.
The Somali police have indicated that the attack would have been carried out by suicide bombers, according to the Radio Dalsan station, which adds that the regional health minister, Zakaria Mohamed Ahmed, and the deputy governor of Hiiraan, Abukar Madey, are among the dead.
For his part, the regional governor, Ali Yaite Osman, has said that “the brutal acts (of Al Shabaab) will never weaken the popular uprising and are a summary that their days are numbered”, as reported by the Somali news agency SONNA news.
Al Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack and has said that the objective was “a security square” in Beledueine, according to SITE Intelligence Group, an agency specialized in monitoring terrorist groups.
The attack was carried out a day after the Somali government announced the death of Abdulahi Nadir, a co-founder of the terrorist group, in a bombing in Middle Juba. Thus, he stressed that Nadir, alias ‘Abdulahi Yare’, died in “an operation planned by the Somali Army and carried out with the cooperation of international partners.”
The Somali authorities have increased their offensives against Al Shabaab in recent weeks and the African country’s Interior Minister, Ahmed Moalim Fiqi, recently confirmed that Turkish-made ‘Bayraktar TB2’ drones are involved in them.
Somalia is facing an increase in the number of attacks by the Islamist militia, linked to the terrorist organization Al Qaeda, both in the capital and in other areas of the south of the country, which has led the president to promise a reinforcement of the security operations to deal with the threat.
