At least six people are confirmed dead in a daring day attack the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Shabaab group waged on the ultra-fortified Halanebase camp on the south-western side of Mogadishu’s Adan Adde International Airport today.
The attack happened at the Eastern Marine Gate of Halane where many shops and business centers including health clinics are located, according to the sources.
Five of the killed, according to official sources, were foreigners while the sixth was a Somali national.
Eyewitnesses report that the attack was well-timed and that assailants had obviously been using intelligence and surveillance data that aimed for maximum casualties, longer engagement, and minimum casualties for the militant group. Sources put the number of attackers at two but others claim that there were at least four combatants.
Casualties, according to other sources, are much more than that admitted by the government.
“The United States condemns those who seek to murder and destroy. We support those who seek to build a secure, prosperous, and peaceful Somalia. Together let’s advance Somalia’s revival,” the US Embassy in Mogadishu put in a tweet soon after the attack.
MP Mahad Salat called the attack lamentable.
“An attack staged on broad daylight at the most fortified compound in the city and at the very place where the incumbent government was ‘elected’ five years ago is a damning testimony to the security state of the country,” he said.
The MP accused the sitting President, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo, of gross incompetence and utter lack of a feeling for sound leadership.
Many more prominent politicians, among Presidential hopeful Abdirahman Abdishakur,
called the government to explain its lackadaisical attitude to security.
“It is clear that Al-Shabaab was not alone in the raid. It is obvious that the attackers were helped from the inside,” Abdishakur said, intimating that government elements had a hand in the conspiracy.
The attack brought the city’s only international airport to a standstill for the better part of the day.
Al Shabaab claim responsibility.
The AU’s AMISOM forces guard the compound which also houses embassies and offices of the international community present in Mogadishu.
In another not un-so-related incident, a Hirshabelle MP was killed near the Presidency in Beledweyne of the Hiiraan region earlier in the evening.
MP Amina Mohamed Abdi, a vocal proponent of civil justice was killed by a suicide bomber who targeted her alone.
Amina was a brave, indefatigable campaigner who sought justice for the NISA officer Ikram Tahlil who disappeared under dubious circumstances and is feared killed in the hands of her former bosses and colleagues at the intelligence agency for secrets that she was privy to.
There is a growing crescendo of voices echoing the inner thoughts of a great number of critics who have always maintained that clandestine collusion of government elements and the Al-Shabaab leadership ran targeted operations in major urban centers to achieve certain ends.
Despite the billions of US Dollars sunk into the 31-year-old failed Somalia state, Somalian leaders are still crying for more cash and more foreign peacekeepers to maintain a semblance of stability in cities. Al-Shabaab’s influence in the country, according to observers is growing exponentially while the government’s control is shrinking inward by the day.
