The US and the UN have condemned a car-bomb attack on a government compound in Mogadishu which killed more than 70 people in the deadliest attack by Somalia’s al-Shebab rebels.
Witnesses described the carnage from Tuesday’s attack as the worst they had seen in Mogadishu since Somalia plunged into chaos two decades ago and said the devastation resembled scenes from World War II.
The suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the compound housing four ministries at a strategic crossroads, two months after the al-Qaeda-linked rebels dismantled all their positions in the capital.
Somalian President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed condemned the attack, which he said claimed “more than 70 people and [left] 150 injured, most of them were young students.”
“I am extremely shocked and saddened by this cruel and inhumane act of violence against the most vulnerable in our society,” he said in a statement. “At this time, when the country is in the midst of a worsening humanitarian crisis, the enemy could not have attacked the Somalian people at a worst time.”
The International Committee for the Red Cross said about 90 people had been hospitalized at Mogadishu’s Medina hospital.
Most of the casualties were reported to be civilians, with residents saying the bomb went off as students were lining up for scholarships offered by Turkey.
The US and the UN were swift to join in the condemnation, with US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton describing the attack as a “cowardly act of terrorism” that “again demonstrates al-Shebab’s complete disregard for human life and Somalia’s future.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed shock at the deadly bombing.
“It is incomprehensible that innocents are being senselessly targeted,” Ban was quoted as saying by spokesman Martin Nesirky. “The secretary-general is appalled by the vicious suicide bomb attack targeting government offices and ministries in Mogadishu today.”
Somalian police spokesman Abdullahi Hassan Barise said the attacker was a Kenyan national, but al-Shebab-owned radio denied the suicide bomber was a Kenyan, identifying him instead as a Somalian.
The scene of the attack looked “like something from World War II. This was total devastation,” resident Abdullahi Aptidon said. “It was a powerful explosion and at first I thought it was a landmine, but the magnitude of the explosion made me imagine something different. This is the worst tragedy since civil war began in 1991.”
Witnesses said the bomber managed to sneak deep into Mogadishu under the cover of transporting displaced civilians from a nearby camp.
An al-Shebab official, who did want to be named, said one of their fighters carried out the attack.
“One of our mujahidin made the sacrifice to kill TFG [Transitional Federal Government] officials, the African Union [AU] troops and other informers who were in the compound,” he said.
Tuesday’s attack was the deadliest by al-Shebab since multiple bombings in Kampala killed at least 76 people in July last year.
It was also their bloodiest in Somalia since the group formed about five years ago, largely in response to Ethiopia’s occupation.
In a surprise move, al-Shebab abandoned their positions in Mogadishu in early August after years of attempting and failing to break the AU’s defenses and take over the capital.
However, they had vowed that it was a tactical move and that their struggle against the Western-backed Somalian government would continue.
They pulled back to areas they already controlled in the south and west, and observers had warned that al-Shebab could be reverting to hit-and-run guerrilla tactics.
“Although the extremists have left the capital, it is very difficult to prevent these types of terrorist attacks which we have consistently warned are likely to be on the increase,” UN Representative for Somalia Augustine Mahiga said.
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