Mogadishu (Daily Pakistan Online) At least 35 people, including 8 members of the same family, were killed and 40 injured in 2 car bomb blasts by al-Shabaab militants in central Somalia.
A senior police officer said the attack was carried out by al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab in Mahas town on Wednesday. It was the latest in a series of attacks since government forces and allied tribal militias began pushing rebels out of areas they had long held last year.
“Most of the dead are civilians,” Harshabil State Deputy Police Commissioner Hasan Kefi Muhammad Ibrahim told Reuters. They are women and children, out of a family of nine members only one child survives. Other families also lost half of their members. 2 The suicide bombings burnt the houses of many civilians to ashes.
Mahas district commissioner Momin Muhammad Halane told state radio that one bomb hit his house and another hit the house of a federal lawmaker. Al-Shabaab’s media office claimed responsibility in a statement, saying it targeted “renegade militiamen and soldiers” and put the death toll at 87. Al-Shabaab often gives higher casualty figures than local officials and residents.
