Several Somali officers arrested over deadly attack in Mogadishu military camp

By Mohammed Dhaysane

HUDUR, Somalia (AA) – Somali authorities arrested several security officials, including a senior commander, after a suicide bomber on Monday targeted a military training facility in the country’s capital Mogadishu, an official said on Wednesday.

The bomber blew himself up inside the Jaalle Siyad military training facility and killed over 30 people, including new military recruits and personnel.

A senior official, who remains anonymous due to media restrictions, told Anadolu in a phone call that authorities had arrested at least four officers, including a military colonel, in connection with the attack.

“An investigation has been launched after the attack, and I believe that this attack may have been facilitated from inside, but we can’t surely say it until the investigation is concluded,” he said.

He added that those responsible for this “heinous crime” will be prosecuted.

Speaking to the members of parliament after the attack, Somalia’s Federal Parliament Speaker Adan Mohamed Nur Madobe said traitors inside the military camp where the deadly bomb occurred may be responsible for the “treacherous attack.” He called for an urgent investigation into the matter.

The attack sparked a mass protest in the town of Marka, the provincial capital of the Lower Shabelle region, where the majority of the recruits were said to have come from.

Al-Shabaab terrorists claimed responsibility for the attack and said it killed 73 soldiers and wounded more than 120 others.

Somali Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that the army backed by the country’s international security partners had conducted separate operations against al-Shabaab, killing 45 terrorists.

The terror group al-Shabaab has doubled its attack since Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mahamud, elected for a second term last year, declared an “all-out war” on al-Shabaab. The terrorist group since then has lost large swaths of territory in central regions, including the coastal town of Haradhere, which had been under the militants’ control for over a decade.

Somalia has been plagued by insecurity for years, with the main threats emanating from al-Shabaab and the Daesh/ISIS terror groups.

Since 2007, the group has been fighting the Somali government and the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), a multidimensional mission authorized by the African Union and mandated by the United Nations Security Council.