This week alone, Al-Shabaab have conducted a series of attacks inside Somalia. Some security experts have dismissed these attacks as spontaneous, claiming this could be a diversionary tactic for a much deadlier attack either in Somalia or an East African country on Friday, September in the wake of the commemoration of the 9/11/2002 US attack by Al Qaeda.
Yesterday, three people were killed and seven were injured in a suicide attack inside a Mogadishu restaurant. Information ministry spokesman Ismail Mukhtar Omar said the attacker walked into the Blue Sky restaurant near Mogadishu National Theatre on Wednesday before blowing himself up.
“The target of the suicide bomber was civilians sitting at the restaurant,” he said. “He walked among them and detonated himself, killing three civilians and wounding seven.
The other day, Al-Shabaab fighters retook the strategic village of Jana Abdalle, 60km NW of Kismayo city, just moments after American and Somali troops withdrew. Allied forces retreated towards Kismayo.
Al-Shabab also launches a pre-dawn attack on Bal’ad, a Govt-controlled town, 30kms North of Mogadishu on Tuesday, ten militants and one SNA soldier were killed in the averted attack. The extremists did not manage to capture the area.
Also on 7 September, an American soldier was wounded in an Al-Shabab suicide attack in Janaa Abdalla area, west of Kismayu. Alshabab’s media websites and Jubbaland locals reported that several Somali Army forces were also killed in the attack.
Two days ago, in Jannaa Abdalla, a car bombing attack by Al-Shabaab hit troops outside of a military base in southern Somalia’s Jubbaland, killing three Somali Special Forces and wounding an American officer. Al-Shabaab took credit but claimed 20 killed.
This trend of attacks should worry Counter Terrorism and Anti-Terrorism agents and instill extra vigilance that covers Friday and whole of next week.
