NAIROBI, Kenya – Attacks in two of Somalia’s largest cities killed five people and wounded 16 others on Saturday, in the latest example of the chronic failure of the country’s security sector to crack down on terrorist groups.
In the capital Mogadishu, a suicide bomber attacked a tax collection center in the Hamar Jajab district in the southeast of the city, the Somali Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism said in a statement. While security officers were able to prevent the attacker from reaching the collection center, the blast damaged a nearby wall and injured six people, including the police. The attacker died in the attack.
In Baidoa, the capital of the southwest Bay region, a land mine detonated near a restaurant on the outskirts of the city, killing five people and injuring 10 others, government officials said.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Shabab, which is linked to al Qaeda, has carried out similar attacks in the past.
“The Somali government condemns in the strongest terms the attacks on civilians,” the ministry statement read.
The attacks come 11 days after the Shabab claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing against a Turkish military base in Somalia. Known as Camp Turksom, the complex, Turkey’s largest overseas military base, is used to train Somali forces and is part of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s efforts to strengthen his country’s strategic presence in the Horn of Africa. .
In recent years, the Shabab, which controls large swaths of southern and central Somalia, has continued to gain strength, carrying out deadly attacks in both Somalia and Kenya. In late December, the group killed 82 people, including 16 university students, when an explosives-laden truck detonated at a busy intersection in Mogadishu.
A week later, the Shabab killed a US service member and two US military contractors when group insurgents invaded a base in Kenya that houses US troops.
The devastating and almost daily attacks on civilians, public officials and security offices have put pressure on the fragile Somali government. Despite a series of US drone strikes and a 20,000-member African Union peacekeeping mission fighting the Shabab, the internationally backed Somali government has remained weak and appears unable to secure the capital, much less the whole country.
Somali officials, however, dispute that, saying they are increasingly thwarting the Shabab attacks. They cited the ability of security forces to prevent the attacker from entering the collection center in the Mogadishu bombing on Saturday as evidence of progress.
Hussein Mohamed contributed reports from Mogadishu, Somalia.
