A suicide bomber has killed at least 13 and injured 21 young recruits who were waiting to register at a military camp in the Somali capital on Sunday, May 18. The al-Shabab extremist group, which has been fighting an insurgency for more than ten years and is associated with al-Qaida, has frequently targeted Mogadishu.
The group regularly targets government and military facilities in an attempt to enforce its rigid interpretation of Islamic law. People started running in all directions as soon as there was a loud explosion. Abdulkadir Hassan Mohamed, a tuk-tuk driver who saw the explosion, said, “There were bodies everywhere.” No immediate claim of responsibility was made. Many young recruits were patiently waiting in line, according to a soldier who spoke to The Associated Press and was only identified as Hussein.
He was a member of the camp’s guard unit. It was a devastating explosion. I witnessed a lot of casualties. Before blowing himself up, the assailant pretended to be a recruit, he claimed. He claimed that five bystanders were among the dead. In July 2023, there was a similar attack at the Jaalle Siyaad Military Academy in Mogadishu, which left 25 soldiers dead and 70 injured. That att