Al-Shabaab scales up attacks in Somalia amid elections

The security forces have shot dead the assailants armed with AK-47 rifles and dressed in NISA uniforms during a gunfight. The attack led to the suspension of all flights at the airport.

News Keydmedia Online
30 March 2022

MOGADISHU, Somalia – The Al-Qaeda-linked terror group Al-Shabaab has doubled its hit-and-run attacks in Somalia as the Horn of Africa nation faces delays in its election.

This month was marked as the bloodiest in 2022 as more than 60 people were killed in a series of bomb and gun assaults in different places, including the capital and Beledweyne city.

Two gunmen stormed Mogadishu airport on March 23, killing at least 6 people, including five foreign nationals, in an attack that raised questions about a possible inside job.

The security forces have shot dead the assailants armed with AK-47 rifles and dressed in NISA uniforms during a gunfight. The attack led to the suspension of all flights at the airport.

On Tuesday night, Al-Shabaab fighters attacked a military base outside Hudur district and engaged in a heavy battle with the Somali forces, according to the local residents.

The base which houses the army’s 60th division is now under the troops’ control after repelling the terrorist attack that inflicted unspecified casualties on both sides.

Early this month, three Al-Shabaab combatants were killed in a foiled attack on the same base in Hudur which is a strategic southern town under the Southwest State of Somalia.

The attacks come as people in the besieged Bakol region are facing a humanitarian crisis resulting from the ongoing drought in Somalia that affected over four million Somalis.

Al-Shabaab was driven out of the capital and key other areas in the south and central Somalia in 2011, but the group is still capable of staging deadly attacks in the country.

KEYDMEDIA English