At least 14 people, including regional ministers of health and women’s affairs and the former deputy parliament speaker of the Hirshabelle State of So-malia, were killed in a bomb explosion, media re-ported on Sunday, citing officials.
According to the Somali Guardian, a truck bomb exploded near the Nur Dob hotel located close to the region’s presidential compound in Jowhar, a town situated 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of the capital of Somalia. The hotel building and the nearby houses were extensively damaged.
Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre “expressed his grief over Sunday’s cowardly terrorist attack,” as quoted by the Somali Guardian.
Al-Shabaab terrorists (affiliated with the Al-Qaeda terror group, banned in Russia) based in So-malia claimed responsibility for the explosion, which happened only a few weeks after Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud vowed to eliminate the group in a special campaign.
Somalia collapsed as a unified nation in 1991 with the downfall of Siad Barre’s dictatorship. The international community recognized the Federal government as the only legitimate authority in the country, which controls the capital Mogadishu and several other areas. The rest of Somalia is controlled by self-governed or unrecognized state entities.—AP
