Female suicide bomber kills intelligence official in Somalia

MOGADISHU, Somalia - A female suicide bomber killed a senior intelligence official after blowing herself up in Mogadishu early Thursday, a police officer said, in an attack attributed to Al-Shabaab jihadists.

The woman detonated a bomb strapped to her waist at Black Sea junction, targeting plain-clothed agents working with the National Intelligence and Security Agency [NISA], killing the undercover unity commander.

Huge plumes of smoke billowed from the area as ambulances rushed the wounded to a nearby hospital for medical treatment, according to the eyewitnesses, who spoke to Garowe Online by phone after the attack. 

Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying the female bomber killed the Howlwadag district Intelligence chief whose named identified only as Ano-gel and two of security guards on the spot.

Mogadishu has seen a rising number of suicide bombings over the past years as the Somali military carried out a campaign to suppress militant attacks in the country's long-chaotic seaside capital.

A blind female suicide bomber killed Mogadishu mayor Abdirahman Yarisow and other top officials on 24th July 2020, in an attack that ripped through the municipal government headquarters in the city.

It was Al-Shabaab’s first known use of a disabled person as a suicide bomber and the statement suggested the bomber used her blindness to get past security and reach the mayor’s offices.

The Al-Qaeda-linked Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab, which aims to topple Somalia’s U.N.-backed government has lost large ground, including the capital in 2011 to SNA and AMISOM, and still faces militants pressure in several fronts.

GAROWE ONLINE