MOGADISHU: As the government steps up an offensive against the Islamists, authorities reported that nine persons, including senior regional officials, were murdered in twin vehicle bombs in central Somalia on Monday.
Beledweyne, a city in the centre of recent offensives against the militants affiliated to Al Qaeda who control vast swaths of Somalia, saw the explosion of two explosive-packed automobiles outside of local government buildings minutes apart.
A state minister and a commissioner are among the nine victims whose deaths have been “confirmed by the initial information we have received,” according to Mohammad Moalim Ali, a commander of the neighbourhood police.
The government announced on Monday that Abdullahi Yare, a key Al Shabaab operative, was killed in a joint air attack on Saturday in the country’s south as part of the robust counterinsurgency being waged by Somali forces and their “foreign security allies.”
Yare, an Al Shabaab co-founder with a $3 million US bounty on his head, was reportedly the next in line to succeed the organization’s ailing top Ahmed Diriye as its leader, the government said.US Africa Command announced on Monday that it had coordinated a drone attack on Al-Shabaab two days prior with the federal government of Somalia.
According to the command’s preliminary assessment, no civilians were hurt or killed in the strike, which killed an Al Shabaab senior, according to a statement.After a series of violent attacks, including a 30-hour hotel siege in the capital Mogadishu that left 21 people dead, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Somalia’s recently elected president, has declared an all-out war on the terrorists.
Last month, as government forces backed by local clan militias launched offensives in the Hiraan region, the capital of which is Beledweyne, Mohamud warned people to avoid areas under the control of Al Shabaab.
Officials from the military and clan elders claimed that the locals had made the decision to use force against the militants after they were suspected of extorting money from them.