MOGADISHU: Somalia’s Al-Shabab fighters attacked a town north of the capital Mogadishu on Thursday, killing at least seven people as they fought government security forces, a police officer and residents said.
Police and residents in Balad, 30 kilometers north of Mogadishu, said the Al-Qaeda-linked group’s fighters attacked and overran government forces guarding a bridge at the town’s entrance early in the morning.
“We were in a mosque praying when a heavy exchange of gunfire took place at the bridge. Al Shabab thus captured the town, overrunning the soldiers at the bridge,” Hassan Nur, a shopkeeper in Balad, an agricultural town that links Somalia’s Middle Shabelle region to Lower Shabelle, told Reuters by phone.
“There were few police forces in the town. (The police) were missing. When the firing started people ran into their houses. I counted five dead soldiers and two civilian women,” he said.
Police captain Farah Ali said the fighters stayed briefly in the town after the attack but then left.
“Al Shabab did not come to our station but captured the entire town in the fighting and left without patrolling,” he told Reuters.
“I understand there are about eight people dead including soldiers.”
Al Shabab aims to topple the government and impose a strict interpretation of Islamic law. It carries out frequent gun and bomb attacks on security and government targets, but also on civilians. It also targets African Union peacekeeping troops.
Somalia, which has had only limited central government since 1991, is trying to reconstruct itself with the help of the United Nations.
The UN and other countries have urged its prime minister, Mohammed Hussein Roble, and president Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed to settle a political dispute that has distracted them from the fight against insurgents.
The president on Monday suspended the prime minister’s powers for suspected corruption, which the prime minister said was a coup attempt as he asked all security forces to take orders from his office.
The two have also blamed each other for long delays in ongoing parliamentary elections.
Somalia’s Al-Shabab fighters attack town near capital, kill 7 — police, residents
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Somalia’s Al-Shabab fighters attack town near capital, kill 7 — police, residents
- Police captain Farah Ali said the fighters stayed briefly in the town after the attack but then left
North Korea says it respects Iran’s choice of new supreme leader: KCNA
- North Korea, a longstanding US adversary, has previously condemned the US-Israeli attack on Iran an “illegal act of aggression”
- Defying US President Donald Trump’s desire to have a say in who runs Iran, the Islamic republic on Sunday named Mojtaba Khamenei to replace his father, longtime ruler Ali Khamenei, who died in an Israeli airstrike on February 28
SEOUL: North Korea respects Iran’s choice of new supreme leader, state media reported Wednesday, as it accused the United States and Israel of destroying regional peace.
“With regard to the recent official announcement that Iran’s Assembly of Experts elected the new leader of the Islamic Revolution, we respect the rights and choice of the Iranian people to elect their supreme leader,” an unnamed Foreign Ministry spokesperson was quoted as saying by state news agency KCNA.
Defying US President Donald Trump’s desire to have a say in who runs Iran, the Islamic republic on Sunday named Mojtaba Khamenei to replace his father, longtime ruler Ali Khamenei, who died in an Israeli airstrike on February 28.
North Korea, a longstanding US adversary, has previously condemned the US-Israeli attack on Iran an “illegal act of aggression.”
On Wednesday, the North Korean spokesperson reiterated that position, saying that the United States and Israel “are destroying the regional peace and security foundations and escalating instability worldwide.”
“Any rhetorical threats and military action, which violate the political system and territorial integrity of the relevant country, interfere in its internal affairs and openly advocate the attempt to overthrow its social system, deserve worldwide criticism and rejection as they can never be tolerated,” the spokesperson added.
In recent months, the Trump administration has mounted a push to revive high-level talks with Pyongyang, eyeing a potential summit between the US president and the North’s Kim Jong Un this year.
After largely ignoring those overtures for months, Kim recently said that the two nations could “get along” if Washington accepted Pyongyang’s nuclear status.
