BOMB BLAST KILLS AT LEAST 12 INCLUDING TOWN INTELLIGENCE CHIEF IN CENTRAL SOMALIA

Mon 08 February 2021:

A roadside bomb went off just outside the central Somalia town of Dhusamareeb on Sunday, killing 12 agents working for the National Intelligence and Security Agency, police said.

The attack, which wounded several others, targeted the vehicle of Abdirashid Abdi Qooje as it passed through the village of Eldhere 30 kilometers (18 miles) west of Dhusamareb, the administrative capital of Galmudug State. Qooje was the head of the National Intelligence and Security Agency in Dhusamareb.

The chief of the intelligence agency in the town of Dhusamareb, Major Abdirashid Abdinur Qoje, was among those killed, the state’s information minister, Ahmed Shire Falagle, confirmed to VOA Somali.

“A vehicle carrying the officer, Qoje, and other soldiers accompanying him were hit by a landmine; the officer and some of the soldiers died, so it was a bomb,” Falagle said.

Several others, including three soldiers, were also wounded and were transported to hospitals in Dhusamareb for treatment.

Local media have placed casualties at 14 people.

The al-Shabab militant group claimed responsibility. The attack marked the second confrontation between al-Shabab and Somali government forces outside Dhusamareb in the space of three days. On Friday, seven militants were killed by government forces after mortars were fired into the town as political leaders held a meeting on election management.

Al-Shabaab, an Al Qaeda-linked terrorist group based in the Horn of Africa country, claimed responsibility for the attack.

This was the third bombing in Somalia over the last 24 hours. One civilian was killed and three others wounded in a bomb blast Saturday evening in the capital Mogadishu.

On Sunday, three soldiers guarding the Mogadishu-Afgoye highway construction site were wounded in another bomb blast outside Mogadishu.