A suicide truck bomb hit the entrance of Somalia’s biggest port on December 11, police said, an attack claimed by Islamist al Shabaab militants. According to Reuters, at least 29 civilians died and 50 others have been injured in the blast.
The bodies of victims lay strewn outside the capital’s terminal in a street filled with rubble from damaged tea shops.
Specifically, the fighters said that were trying to disrupt protracted parliamentary elections – part of efforts to rebuild the fractured nation after decades of war. The three-month vote is due to end on December 29.
Mohamed Hussein, a port worker, said gunfire had followed the blast.
Al Shabaab’s military operation spokesman, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, told Reuters the blast was aimed at police officers stationed close to the port. Al Shabaab’s insurgency aims to drive out African Union peacekeepers, topple Somalia’s western-backed government and impose its strict version of Islam on the Horn of Africa state.
