Shabaab, al Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia, claimed credit for a massive suicide truck bombing today in Mogadishu that killed scores of schoolchildren and Somali soldiers. The attack is the worst in Somalia since Shabaab launched its insurgency in early 2007.
The suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives at the Hargaha and Samaha compounds in the capital, according to Mareeg. Government ministers were present at the scene of the attack, where scholarships were being awarded by the Turkish government to Somali students.
Upwards of 100 Somalis, including dozens of students and their parents, are estimated to have been killed, and more than 90 wounded. Somali ministers and parliamentarians are also said to have been wounded in the attack.
Shabaab claimed credit for the deadly suicide blast, saying it targeted Somali government officials and troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia.
“Our Mujahideen fighters have entered a place where ministers and AMISOM foreigners stay,” an official statement on Shabaab’s website read.
“One of our Mujahideen made the sacrifice to kill TFG [Transitional Federal Government] officials, the African Union troops, and other informers who were in the compound,” a Shabaab official told AFP.
Today’s attack is the largest in Somalia since Shabaab began its insurgency against the weak Transitional Federal Government following the Ethiopian invasion in December 2006 and the ouster of Shabaab’s predecessor, the Islamic Courts, in early 2007. Shabaab now controls much of central and southern Somalia, although the terror group pulled many of its forces from Mogadishu last summer, claiming to make a tactical retreat.
Since mid-2006, Shabaab has carried out more than 30 major suicide attacks in Somalia. The last attack, on June 17, killed the Interior Minister in his home in Mogadishu.
Shabaab has assassinated several Somali ministers within the past few years. On June 18, 2009, State Security Minister Omar Hashi Aden and the former ambassador to Ethiopia were among 20 people killed when a Shabaab suicide bomber targeted them as they left a hotel in the town of Beletwein,
On Dec. 3, 2009, the ministers of health, education, and higher education were among 19 Somalis killed in a suicide attack at a graduation for Somali medical students from Banadir University in the capital of Mogadishu.
Shabaab also succeeded in assassinating a top African Union commander. On Sept. 17, 2009, the deputy African Union commander and 21 other people, including 16 peacekeepers, were killed after suicide bombers penetrated security at an African Union base in Mogadishu.
And on July 12, 2010, Shabaab carried out a major terror attack outside Somalia, a double suicide bombing in Kampala, Uganda that killed 76 people as they watched a World Cup match. The attack cell was named after a senior al Qaeda leader who also served as a senior Shabaab commander.
Background on Shabaab’s links to al Qaeda
Shabaab merged with al Qaeda in November 2008, after requesting to join the international terror group in September 2008. Top al Qaeda leaders, including slain emir Osama bin Laden, current leader Ayman al Zawahiri, and Abu Yayha al Libi, have praised Shabaab in propaganda tapes and encouraged the group to carry out attacks against the Somali government, neighboring countries, and the West.
After the death of bin Laden in Pakistan in May 2011, Shabaab renewed its pledge of allegiance to al Qaeda. In mid-June, Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage, Shabaab’s senior spokesman, affirmed that the group would continue to follow the orders of Zawahiri after he was officially named the new emir of al Qaeda.
“In an initiative and in [a demonstration of] loyalty, love and support amongst the mujahideen in the world, the Shabaab al-Mujahideen Movement announces the renewal of its allegiance to the Emir of Qaedat al-Jihad,” Rage said.
Since Shabaab’s inception, Al Qaeda has been instrumental in appointing leaders to posts in the Somali terror network. Over the past several years, al Qaeda commanders have taken over some of the top leadership positions in Shabaab.
Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, al Qaeda’s top leader in East Africa, held a top position in Shabaab. He had been indicted for his involvement in the 1998 suicide attacks in Kenya and Tanzania along with Osama bin Laden and other top al Qaeda leaders. In the summer of 2008, Nabhan was instrumental in reaching out to al Qaeda’s top leadership to broker a merger between Shabaab and the global terror group. He was killed in a US special operations raid in Somalia on Sept. 14, 2009.
After Nabhan’s death, Osama bin Laden appointed Fazul Abdullah Mohammed to serve as al Qaeda’s operations chief in East Africa. The announcement was made at a ceremony in Mogadishu that was attended by Ahmad Godane Zubayr, Shabaab’s spiritual leader. At the time, Fazul, who also had been indicted for his role in the Kenya and Tanzania attacks, was serving as Shabaab’s top intelligence official as well as a senior military leader. Fazul was killed by Somali troops at a checkpoint outside of Mogadishu on June 3, 2011. In the years before his death, Fazul sought guidance from Osama bin Laden, according to several terrorists detained at the Guantanamo Bay facility.
Other foreign al Qaeda operatives also hold key leadership positions in Shabaab. Shaykh Muhammad Abu Fa’id, a Saudi citizen, serves as a top financier and a “manager” for Shabaab. Abu Musa Mombasa, a Pakistani citizen, serves as Shabaab’s chief of security and training. Mahmud Mujajir, a Sudanese citizen, is Shabaab’s chief of recruitment for suicide bombers. Abu Mansour al Amriki, a US citizen, serves as a military commander, recruiter, financier, and propagandist.
In the past, al Qaeda’s central leadership, which is based in Pakistan, instructed Shabaab to downplay its links to the terror group but to continue to target US interests in the region, a senior US intelligence official who closely follows al Qaeda and Shabaab in East Africa told The Long War Journal in June 2010. The report was later confirmed by intelligence information seized at bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
But more recently, Rage has openly called for al Qaeda to send more fighters to Somalia to fight the weak Transitional Federal Government and African Union forces from Uganda and Burundi.
“We call on our brothers [Al Qaeda] to come to Somalia and to help us expand the East Africa jihad,” Rage told reporters at a press conference in Mogadishu in December 2010, while announcing the takeover of a rival Islamist group.
Shabaab is considered by some US military and intelligence officials to be one of al Qaeda’s most successful affiliates. Shabaab has defeated Hizbul Islam, a rival Islamist terror group, and has taken control of much of southern and central Somalia after waging a terror insurgency against Ethiopian forces and the UN-backed Transitional Federal Government.
Somali troops and African Union peacekeepers from Uganda and Burundi are battling Shabaab in Mogadishu and in southern and central Somalia in an attempt to regain control of the capital and surrounding areas. Shabaab has lost ground in Mogadishu but is still in control of large areas of the center and south.
8 Comments
More tough guys showing the world how tough they are when they kill students and parents and other innocent people caught up in their cowardly bs.
Evil, brutal carnage.
Is this part of Shabaab’s PR efforts?
“Upwards of 100 Somalis, including dozens of students and their parents, are estimated to have been killed.” The students were Somalia’s future. With their deaths Somalia’s future can only be less than it could have been. The War on Terror must be won.
Shabaab just cut off its nose. No Somali with any moral sense can stand this kind of savagry.
This madness will end when we quit worrying about “reading them their rights”, detaining them, trials, etc. War usually goes to the lowest common denominator; unfortunately, that’s where the jihadis have been all along (remember 9/11 and Danny Pearl?). We’ve had this idea that we can play by civilized rules, based on the idea that all people have some level of humanity, however deeply buried it may be. These devils long ago rid themselves of whatever made them human. We don’t attempt to rehabilitate or “understand” rabid dogs…we kill them.
Let’s stop treating these mad dogs like they’re humans…let’s just put them out of our misery.
Allah may be merciful, but the only mercy these guys know is death. I wonder how anyone justifies such actions by anything other than blind hatred and naked cruelty.
Shabab is fast turning into a lethal force !!! is it a blowback?