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
Campaigning starts in CAR election
- Both of Touadera’s top critics on the ballot paper, ex-Prime Minister Henri-Marie Dondra and the main opposition leader Anicet-Georges Dologuele, had feared they would be barred from the election over nationality requirements
BANGUI: Campaigning has kicked off in the Central African Republic, with the unstable former French colony’s voters set to cast their ballots in a quadruple whammy of elections on Dec. 28.
Besides national, regional and municipal lawmakers, Centrafri-cains are set to pick their president, with incumbent Faustin-Archange Touadera in pole position out of a seven-strong field after modifying the constitution to allow him to seek a third term.
Thousands of supporters packed into a 20,000-seater stadium in the capital Bangui on Saturday to listen to Touadera, accused by the opposition of wishing to cling on as president-for-life in one of the world’s poorest countries.
In his speech, Touadera, who was first elected in 2016 in the middle of a bloody civil war, styled himself as a defender of the country’s young people and insisted there was work to do to curb ongoing unrest.
“The fight for peace and security is not over,” the president warned the packed stands.
“We must continue to strengthen our army in order to guarantee security throughout the national territory and preserve the unity of our country.”
Both of Touadera’s top critics on the ballot paper, ex-Prime Minister Henri-Marie Dondra and the main opposition leader Anicet-Georges Dologuele, had feared they would be barred from the election over nationality requirements.
Touring the capital’s districts alongside a traveling convoy, Dologuele warned that the upcoming vote represents “a choice for national survival; a choice between resignation and hope.”
“Our people have experienced 10 years of this regime. Ten years of waiting, promises and suffering,” he added.
