Mogadishu Attack: Police And Civilians Killed In Terrorist Attack, Civilians Shot By Police

Terror struck Somalia yesterday with the Mogadishu attack, where police and civilians were killed. At least three police officers and two civilians are dead, with more civilians wounded.

Authorities have confirmed that al-Shabaab, the al-Qaeda-aligned Islamic jihadist faction operating in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack. The Mogadishu attack saw at least five people, including civilians, killed in a double-barreled strike on Mogadishu’s police station. Multiple gunmen shot at the police headquarters while a suicide bomber drove a car close to the building before triggering the deadly explosion. Mogadishu officials have said that three police were killed by al-Shabaab militants in the initial gun attack at the station, while the two civilians were shot dead by police officers responding to gunfire in a nearby street.

According to News 24, two gunmen and the suicide bomber also perished in the Mogadishu attack, and the police officers responsible for shooting two civilians dead have been arrested for questioning.

“Islamic jihadists killed three police officers in a bomb and gun attack on a police station in the Somali capital on Monday,” said their report on the Mogadishu attack. “A suicide car bomber and a gunman also died, as did two civilians, apparently shot by police responding to the attack claimed by Somalia’s al-Qaeda-aligned Shebaab. Other civilians were also wounded.”

Abdifatah Omar Halane, the spokesperson for the Mogadishu city administration, confirmed that three police officers died in yesterday’s attack, and the officers who shot two civilians have been arrested.

“The attack involved two Shabaab members, one of them driving a car loaded with explosives, and another tried to storm the police headquarters but was shot dead,” Halane added. “We have lost three policemen.”

Somalia’s famine-stricken capital is no stranger to terror strikes like yesterday’s Mogadishu attack, when police and civilians were killed in a terrorist attack in Mogadishu at the city police station. Al-Shabaab militants launch regular attacks in Mogadishu with an aim to overthrow the city’s internationally-backed government.

A month ago, Al-Shabaab militants launched a bloody attack in Mogadishu in which three people, including a child, were killed in a car bomb blast outside a restaurant. The two Islamic jihadists involved in that Mogadishu attack were executed thereafter. In November, Al-Shabaab terrorists claimed responsibility for bringing down a Somalian jet using a laptop bomb planted prior to take-off. Mail & Guardian Africa reports that Shabaab rebels have extended their attack plots to neighboring Kenya as well as retaining an intensive terror campaign in Mogadishu.

“Shabaab rebels have carried out repeated attacks in Somalia and neighbouring Kenya as part of their fight to overthrow the country’s internationally-backed government, as well as the African Union troops supporting it, which include Kenyan soldiers,” reports M&G Africa. “Shabaab leaders have vowed to bring down the Somali government, which is supported by the international community and defended by the African Union’s 22,000-strong AMISOM mission.”

Journalists, government officials, businessmen, and politicians are frequently targeted by the East-Africa branch of militant Islamic extremists. In December last year, a Mogadishu journalist was killed when a car bomb planted by Shabaab detonated upon starting the engine.

“Hindiyo Haji Mohamed, a journalist with the national television station, SNTV, was returning home from university when the bomb detonated,” reported M&G Africa. “Mohamed’s late husband, also a journalist with the same television station, was killed in a suicide attack on a Mogadishu restaurant in 2012.”

Yesterday’s Mogadishu attack, when police and civilians were killed in a terrorist attack, is yet another tragic instance of Islamic jihadist terrorism enacted by al-Qaeda’s eastern Africa faction. Investigations into the Shabaab terror attack are underway by local authorities.

[Photo by John Moore/Getty Images]