MOGADISHU: Somalia’s Al-Shabab fighters attacked a military base outside the capital Mogadishu using car bombs and guns, killing 17 soldiers and taking control of the base and a nearby town, the group said on Friday.
Residents and officials confirmed the attack, but gave no details on casualties.
“After morning prayer today, two Mujahideen rammed into Barire military base with suicide car bombs. We killed 17 soldiers and took seven technical vehicles,” Abdiasis Abu Musab, Al-Shabab’s military operation spokesman, told Reuters on Friday, referring to pick-up trucks mounted with machine guns.
“The other soldiers ran helter skelter into the woods. We now control the base and the village.”
Barire is 50 kilometers southwest of Mogadishu.
Al-Shabab aims to topple the government in Mogadishu and impose its strict owns interpretation of Islam. Somalia has been at war since 1991 when clan-based warlords overthrew dictator Siad Barre and then turned on each other.
The Al-Qaeda-linked group was driven out of the capital in 2011, but still carries out frequent attacks on security and government targets, but also on civilians. They also target African Union peacekeeping troops.
Ali Nur, the deputy governor of Lower Shabelle region where Barire is located, confirmed the fighting but gave no more details on casualties.
Residents in Barire also confirmed the attack.
“First we heard two huge blasts at the base and then heavy exchange of gunfire followed. Now it looks like the fighting died down,” Ali Farah told Reuters from Barire village.
Two weeks ago, Al-Shabab attacked an army base at a town near the border with Kenya, while three weeks ago they struck another in the southern port city of Kismayu, killing at least 43 people in both incidents.
Somalia’s Al-Shabab say 17 soldiers killed in attack on military base outside Mogadishu
Somalia’s Al-Shabab say 17 soldiers killed in attack on military base outside Mogadishu
Turkiye blocks aid convoy to Syria’s Kobani: NGOs
- They said the aid was blocked before it reached the Turkiye-Syria border
- “Blocking humanitarian aid trucks carrying basic necessities is unacceptable,” said the platform
ANKARA: Turkish authorities have blocked a convoy carrying aid to Kobani, a predominantly Kurdish town in northern Syria encircled by the Syrian army, NGOs and a Turkish MP said on Saturday.
They said the aid was blocked before it reached the Turkiye-Syria border, despite an agreement announced on Friday between the Syrian government and the country’s Kurdish minority to gradually integrate the Kurds’ military and civilian institutions into the state.
Twenty-five lorries containing water, milk, baby formula and blankets collected in Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkiye’s predominantly Kurdish southeast, “were prevented from crossing the border,” said the Diyarbakir Solidarity and Protection Platform, which organized the aid campaign.
“Blocking humanitarian aid trucks carrying basic necessities is unacceptable, both from the point of view of humanitarian law and from the point of view of moral responsibility,” said the platform, which brings together several NGOs.
Earlier this week, residents of Kobani told AFP they were running out of food, water and electricity because the city was overwhelmed with people fleeing the advance of the Syrian army.
Kurdish forces accused the Syrian army of imposing a siege on Kobani, also known as Ain Al-Arab in Arabic.
“The trucks are still waiting in a depot on the highway,” said Adalet Kaya, an MP from Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish DEM party who was accompanying the convoy.
“We will continue negotiations today. We hope they will be able to cross at the Mursitpinar border post,” he told AFP.
Mursitpinar is located on the Turkish side of the border, across from Kobani.
Turkish authorities have kept the border crossing closed since 2016, while occasionally opening it briefly to allow humanitarian aid to pass through.
DEM and Turkiye’s main opposition CHP called this week for Mursitpinar to be opened “to avoid a humanitarian tragedy.”
Turkish authorities said aid convoys should use the Oncupinar border crossing, 180 kilometers (110 miles) away.
“It’s not just a question of distance. We want to be sure the aid reaches Kobani and is not redirected elsewhere by Damascus, which has imposed a siege,” said Kaya.
After months of deadlock and fighting, Damascus and the Syrian Kurds announced an agreement on Friday that would see the forces and administration of Syria’s Kurdish autonomous region gradually integrated into the Syrian state.
Kobani is around 200 kilometers from the Kurds’ stronghold in Syria’s far northeast.
Kurdish forces liberated the city from a lengthy siege by the Daesh group in 2015 and it took on symbolic value as their first major victory against the militants.
Kobani is hemmed in by the Turkish border to the north and government forces on all sides, pending the entry into the force of Friday’s agreement.
