Six people were killed and several injured in a suicide bombing attack at municipal government headquarters in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Wednesday. A female suicide bomber detonated herself in the office of the Mogadishu’s mayor, reported Reuters. All the six victims, including five men and one woman, were government officials.
The attack happened moments after the United Nations, UN, envoy to Somalia, James Swan, left the premises after meeting Abdirahman Omar Osman, Mayor of the Somali capital, and other officials of the capital. Mayor Omar Osman, who was at the Banadir administration headquarters at the time of the attack, was also injured.
Swan, who fortunately left the premises before the blast happened, condemned the attack.
“I deplore this heinous attack which not only demonstrates a violent disregard for the sanctity of human life but also targets Somalis working to improve the lives of their fellow Somalis in the Mogadishu-Banadir region,” Swan said in a statement.
“The UN stands with the people and government of Somalia in their rejection of such terrorist acts, and our thoughts are with the victims of this attack.”
Deputy Mayor Mohamed Abdullahi Tullah told state-owned media that the mayor is currently being treated at the Raccep Tayyip Erdogan hospital.
Somali’s information minister, Mohamed Abdi Hayir, said Mogadishu district commissioners were among the dead. He said the six people who were killed in the terrorist attack include two district commissioners and three directors.
Al Qaeda-linked Islamist militant group, Al-Shabaab, confirmed that they were behind the attack. The armed group has a powerful presence in rural Somalia and intends to overthrow Somalia’s UN-backed government. The group said the attack was planned to target UN’s special envoy James Swan.
“We conducted a successful operation in Mogadishu this afternoon,” al Shabaab spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab said in a statement sent to Reuters.
