MOGADISHU, Jan 4 (NNN-AGENCIES) – At least nine people were killed and several others wounded in simultaneous car bomb attacks in a town in central Somalia on Wednesday, security officials and witnesses said.
“The terrorists attacked Mahas town using vehicles loaded with explosives. They have targeted a civilian area and we have confirmed that nine people, all of them civilians, died in the two explosions,” local security official Abdullahi Adan said.
Police spokesman Sadik Dudishe did not give a death toll figure but said the incident was being investigated.
“The ruthless terrorists killed mothers. Some of them died with their children trapped on their backs,” he told reporters at a press briefing, adding the attackers had targeted “students and other civilians”.
The explosions shattered windows of nearby buildings, sent shrapnel flying and clouds of smoke and dust into the air.
The attack happened at a busy junction where a truck packed with explosives blew up on Oct 14, 2017, killing 512 people and injuring more than 290.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but the Al-Shabaab group remains a potent force in the troubled Horn of Africa nation despite multinational efforts to degrade its leadership.
Its fighters were driven out of the capital in 2011 by an African Union force but the group still controls swathes of countryside and has the capacity to wage deadly strikes on civilian and military targets.
The group last week claimed responsibility for an attack on a hotel in the port city of Kismayo that killed nine people and wounded 47 others.
In August, the group launched a 30-hour gun and bomb attack on the popular Hayat hotel in Mogadishu, killing 21 people and wounding 117.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who was elected in May, vowed after the August siege to wage “all-out war” on the Islamists.
In September he urged citizens to stay away from areas controlled by Al-Shabaab, saying the armed forces and tribal militia were ratcheting up offensives against them.
A joint US-Somali drone strike killed one of the militants’ most senior commanders on Oct 1.
Just hours after his death was announced, a triple bombing in the southern city of Beledweyne killed at least 30 people.
In addition to violence, Somalia — like its neighbours in the Horn of Africa — is in the grip of the worst drought in more than 40 years. Four failed rainy seasons have wiped out livestock and crops. — NNN-AGENCIES
