Mogadishu: Al-Shabaab Bombing Targets Blue Sky Teashop for the 6th Time

Mogadishu, Somalia (ANN)-Although the al-Shabaab Islamist fighters have not yet owned up to the bombing, the blast, where it happened and how it happened has its MO plastered all over it.

The Blue Sky teashop is located between the notorious old Somalia intelligence underground interrogation chambers Godka Jilicow – and the Hawo Tako monument, opposite the national theatre in Mogadishu. It is nearer, though, to a security checkpoint commanding one of the approaches to Villa Somalia.

The majority of Blue Sky patrons could be counted to comprise government and security personnel.

It was targeted today for the 6th time since it was established several years back.

According to reports trickling of the incident, a suicide bomber hit the snack bar-cum-restaurant.

Three people, one of them a ten-year-old boy, who was a shoeshiner, lost their lives immediately. A score of others sustained injuries of varying degrees, according to eyewitnesses.

Among the dead is an officer of the Presidential red beret guards, Seidow Sheikh Abukar. Seidow had, until lately, been the officer in charge of the residences of three presidents including the incumbent, Mohamed Farmajo. Reports state that he had been replaced recently as part of sweeping changes the president made to Villa Somalia following the dismissal of ex-Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khayrre.

The third, according to an official statement, was a young man called Mohamed Ali Guure.

Emerging reports indicate that the number of dead and injured could be much more than have been initially released. Eyewitnesses, for one, report that a number that body parts have been blown to pieces with bones and flesh plastered all over the walls and the sidewalk in front of the teashop.

Of late, the al-Qaeda affiliated group revived its urban operation to – if nothing else – to keep the weak, security-prone administration at Villa Somalia jittery and on its toes.

Somalia, although it has become by all definitions the graveyard of untold of international funding, is yet to come up with either the strategy or the muscle to manage its security. The international plans to hand over the country’s expensive security management back to the FGS in 2021.

Source: Somtribune