Car bombs: Al-Shabaab's weapon to impose control in Somalia
Hardly a month passes that the
terrorist Al-Shabaab movement in Somalia, which affiliated with al-Qaeda, does
not carry out an attack more ferocious than the one that preceded it, spreading
terror and fear in Somalia and its people on a continuous basis.
Al-Shabaab has been taking advantage
of the political and security turmoil in Somalia for several years, trying day
after day to impose its control by launching attacks against the Somali
security forces using heavy weapons and car bombs.
The latest of those attacks was on
Saturday, September 25, when 15 people were killed in the Somali capital,
Mogadishu, in a car bomb attack on a checkpoint near the presidential palace.
Targeting the
presidential palace
The attack, which killed 15 people,
most of them civilians, including a woman and her two children, was claimed by
Al-Shabaab, according to Makawi Ahmed Modi, the police chief of Hamar Jajab
region, where the attack occurred.
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility
for the attack, which targeted the main security checkpoint of the presidential
palace, government officials, and others who were on their way to the palace.
Police spokesman Ali Hassan told the
German Press Agency that the explosion was powerful and occurred at a
checkpoint located about a kilometer from the presidential palace.
History of bomb
attacks
Despite the ferocity of the attack,
it is not the first of its kind in which the terrorist movement used car bombs
to carry out terrorist operations in Somalia. Since the exit of US forces in
January 2021, Somalia has witnessed repeated terrorist bombings and attacks
claimed by Al-Shabaab.
On June 27, the terrorist movement
launched a car bomb attack against a military base in Galmudug in the center of
the country, killing 30 people, including soldiers and civilians.
Fifteen people were killed in
separate attacks in the country on February 7, including 12 soldiers and an
intelligence commander, and others were seriously injured, as a result of an
explosive device planted on the side of the road linking the cities of
Dusamareb and Guriel in the Galgaduud region in the center of the country.
On January 31, after the departure
of the US forces, at least five civilians were killed and ten others wounded in
an attack by Al-Shabab on a hotel in central Mogadishu.
Somali
condemnation
While the Somali government
condemned the ongoing terrorist attacks on military bases, checkpoints and
positions, it also announced that its forces supported by peacekeeping forces
have been able to inflict dozens of deaths among the ranks of Al-Shabaab in the
ongoing confrontations between the two sides since about 2007.
The Somali capital, Mogadishu, has
witnessed regular terrorist attacks carried out by Al-Shabaab militants, with
the aim of spreading the insurgency in order to overthrow the Somali government
supported by the international community.
