Islamic insurgents posing as UN staffers detonated suicide car bombs in an African Union (AU) peacekeeping base to avenge a US commando raid that killed an al-Qaeda operative.
Witnesses and officials said the Thursday bombings and a counterstrike from the AU base killed at least 16 people, including four bombers, and wounded dozens.
The sophisticated suicide attack underscored links between al-Qaeda’s terror network and Somalia’s homegrown insurgency. Many fear this impoverished and lawless African nation is becoming a haven for al-Qaeda — a place for terrorists to train and plan attacks elsewhere.
An hour after the bomb attack there was more bloodshed. Missiles fired from the peacekeepers’ airport base exploded in insurgent-controlled areas of the capital.
An Associated Press photographer saw a young woman and a girl dead on the street, their bodies bloodied from their wounds.
Ali Muse of the Mogadishu ambulance service said the missiles killed seven people and wounded 16.
The suicide bombings are a hallmark of al-Qaeda that can be traced to training from militants like the operative killed this week by helicopter-borne US special forces, said Ted Dagne, a Washington-based Africa specialist.
Suicide attacks were virtually unknown in Somalia before 2007, even though the nation has been wracked by war for almost two decades.
“Al-Qaeda provided the training as well as the brainwashing,” Dagne said. “Never in Somali culture, never during 19 years of war, was suicide bombing used as a tool. This is new.”
There have been about a dozen suicide bombings since the Islamic insurgent group al-Shabab stepped up its attacks against the Western-backed backed government in 2007.
Al-Shabab controls much of Somalia and operates openly in the capital, confining the government and peacekeepers to a few blocks of the city. The US and the UN support Somalia’s government and the African peacekeeping force.
The suicide bombers arrived at the airport in UN cars packed with explosives and drove onto the main base of the AU peacekeepers before setting off two huge blasts that shattered windows over a wide area and shrouded the sky in black smoke.
An airport security officer said soldiers guarding the base waved in the trucks because they were UN vehicles. Somali Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke confirmed the cars had been stolen.
“When the cars entered one of them sped toward a petrol depot and exploded,” the security officer said, asking that his name not be used because he is not authorized to speak to the media. “The other one exploded in a nearby area.”
A witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said there were 11 bodies at the AU base. But the AU said nine people were killed there: four suicide bombers and five officials from the Somali government and the AU peacekeeping force, including its Burundian deputy commander.
At least one American was wounded by the bombings, said a police official in Nairobi, Kenya, where several of the wounded were flown.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of