MOGADISHU, Somalia – A female suicide bomber killed a senior intelligence official after blowing herself up in Mogadishu early Thursday, a police officer said in an attack attributed to al-Shabaab jihadists.
The woman detonated a bomb strapped to her waist at the Black Sea Crossing aimed at commonly dressed agents working for the National Intelligence and Security Agency [NISA]and killed the secret unit commander.
Giant smoke birds rippled from the area as ambulances rushed the injured to a nearby hospital for medical treatment, according to eyewitnesses who spoke to Axadleby phone after the attack.
Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the female bomber killed Howlwadag district intelligence chief, whose name was identified only as Ano-gel and two of the security guards at the scene.
Mogadishu has seen an increasing number of suicide bombings in recent years as the Somali military launched a campaign to suppress militant attacks in the country’s long chaotic coastal capital.
A blind female suicide bomber killed Mogadishu Mayor Abdirahman Yarisow and other top officials on July 24, 2020 in an attack that erupted through the city government headquarters in the city.
It was Al-Shabaab’s first known use of a disabled person as a suicide bomber, and the statement suggested the bomber used her blindness to get past security and reach the mayor’s offices.
The al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab, which aims to overthrow Somalia’s UN-backed government, has lost ground, including the capital in 2011 to the SNA and AMISOM, and still faces militant pressure on several fronts.
AXADLETM
