Africa

Bomb Laden Car Explodes at Somalia Gov't Military Base, Al Shabaab Claims Responsibility - Reports

In July, an explosion rocked a hotel in the Somalian port city of Kismayu, leaving 26 people dead and 56 injured.
Sputnik

According to media reports, car bombs hit a Somalian government military base in the country's lower Shabelle region.

The Al-Shabaab Islamist militant group* has claimed responsibility for the blasts.

"We heard two huge blasts and gunfire from the direction of the Somali military base. I saw several soldiers running away from the base to escape but we cannot know how many were killed," Awdhigle elder Aden Abdullahi eyewitness said.

The blasts occurred in Awdhigle, an agricultural district along the Shabelle River, 70 km southwest of the Mogadishu.

Al-Shabaab, which reportedly emerged in Somalia in 2006, is allied with the al-Qaeda* terrorist organisation. Somalia has been engulfed in violence since the eruption of a civil war between clan-based armed groups in the early 1990s. Al-Shabaab has been staging numerous attacks across the country in an attempt to impose Sharia law.

*Al-Shabaab, al-Qaeda are terrorist organisations banned in Russia and many other countries.

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