Three Somali Cabinet ministers and 16 other people were killed in a suicide bombing at a university graduation yesterday morning.
The bomber, reportedly a man dressed as a woman, blew himself up during the ceremony at a Mogadishu hotel in a supposedly safe part of the city. Government officials, journalists, students and family members had crowded into a hall at the Shamo Hotel when the bomber struck.
Witnesses described a huge explosion that left the hall strewn with bodies. Many of those killed or injured were students, 43 of whom were due to graduate. “A lot of my friends were killed,” said Mohamed Abdulqadir, a student. “I was sitting next to a lecturer who died. He had been speaking to the gathering just a few minutes before the explosion,” he said.
The Health Minister, Qamar Aden Ali, the Education Minister, Ahmed Abdulahi Waayeel, and the Higher Education Minister, Ibrahim Hassan Adow, were killed. The Sports Minister, Saleban Olad Roble, was injured. At least two Somali journalists and 14 others were also killed. An unknown number of people were injured.
Somalia’s Information Minister called the attack a national disaster. “A man who disguised himself as a woman, complete with a veil and a female’s shoes, is behind the explosion,” said Dahir Mohamud Gelle. The African Union (AU), which has deployed 5,300 peacekeepers to support the fragile UN-backed Government, confirmed that at least 19 had been killed.
Advertisement
“Such an inhumane and cowardly act aimed at stalling the peace process will not deter the resolve and determination of the African Union to support the people of Somalia in their quest for peace and reconciliation,” it said in a statement.
The gathering was to celebrate the graduation of a class of medical students from Benadir University, and was being held in part of the city supposedly controlled by the Government. Last year’s ceremony was seen as a small symbol of hope in a shattered country; yesterday’s became yet another example of the ruthless ease with which insurgents are able to strike. No group has admitted responsibility yet but in the past suicide bombings have been carried out by al-Shabaab — an Islamist group opposed to the Government.
Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government, led by President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, is under siege. Clan-based and Islamist militants are challenging him and his AU protectors. Al-Shabaab is linked to al-Qaeda and listed as a terrorist organisation by the US. Hizb al-Islam, another militant group, is headed by Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, also on the US list.
Al-Shabaab holds sway over most of central and southern Somalia and has proved the most dangerous of Sheikh Ahmed’s opponents. The group has even threatened attacks in neighbouring Kenya as well as Uganda and Burundi, which have supplied peacekeepers to the AU mission.
Its leaders want to impose a draconian form of Sharia, and have amputated the hands and feet of alleged thieves and stoned to death alleged adulterers in areas it controls.
Advertisement
Military and intelligence sources have warned that al-Shabaab has been strengthened by hundreds of foreign jihadists, who bring with them insurgent methods that have proved lethal in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan among others. This year there has been an increase in the number of deadly suicide attacks on the Somali Government and AU peacekeepers.
In September two suicide car bombers struck right in the heart of the fortified AU base, close to Mogadishu airport, killing 17 peacekeepers, including the Burundian deputy head of the force. A further 11 peacekeepers were killed in February.
Somalia has been in a state of almost constant civil war since 1991 when the dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was thrown out by armed opponents. Numerous international attempts to stabilise the country have failed so far.