MOGADISHU (Reuters) – At least 10 people were killed on Saturday when a suicide bomber hit makeshift kiosks in the Somali capital, hours after Al Shabaab Islamic militants attacked two National Army bases outside the city, the government said.
“A suicide bomber blew himself up under trees where poor mothers were selling tea, milk and (narcotic leaf) khat,” Information Ministry spokesman Ismail Mukhtar Omar told Reuters, adding that more people were injured in the attack.
There was no immediate comment from Al Shabaab, which had previously assumed responsibility for the attacks on Bariire and Awdhigle’s army bases.
The Army previously said there were casualties on both sides in these attacks, but it was now in control.
The bases, located about 100 km (60 miles) southwest of Mogadishu, were hit by two explosions, witnesses said. A third explosion was aimed at a troop convoy that was rushing to the capital’s bases after the attack, they added.
Militants from Al Shabaab, which is linked to Al-Qaeda, undertook years of attacks and took tolls on trade in a campaign to introduce strict religious laws.
Saturday’s attacks came amid heightened fears that the group might try to exploit vulnerabilities created by the failure to hold a parliamentary and presidential election, scheduled for February.
Hussein Nur, a military officer, said the army lost “several” soldiers in the attack on the bases, without providing an accurate number.
The army sent reinforcements from other stations, which killed an unidentified number of attackers in the ensuing fight, he told Reuters.
The Army has taken control of both the bases and the surrounding area and “We are chasing militants in the surrounding jungle,” he said.
Al Shabaab said it launched a suicide bomber attack on Bariire’s base while simultaneously attacking the nearby Awdhigle base with a car bomb and fighter jets, to prevent troops stationed there from reinforcing Bariire.
“We invaded the Bariire base, burned three military vehicles and took two vehicles,” Abdiasis Abu Musab, Al Shabaab’s spokesman for military operations, told Reuters, referring to a brief occupation of Bariire.
A third explosive device carried by vehicle struck a convoy of government troops running from Mogadishu with reinforcements, he said. He also said that there were victims on both sides in the attacks.
Reporting by Feisal Omar and Abdi Sheikh Writing by Duncan Miriri Editing by Frances Kerry