Investigators confirm suicide bomber caused Somalia airliner blast

NAIROBI, Kenya—Somali and international investigators have confirmed that the man ejected from a Airbus A321 by a blast aboard the airplane over Somalia was a suicide bomber, a person briefed on the probe said Friday.

The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that investigators believed a passenger who boarded Tuesday’s Djibouti-bound Daallo Airlines may have been responsible for the blast that blew a hole in the fuselage of the plane and forced the aircraft to return to the capital Mogadishu for an emergency landing. The passenger may have boarded the flight in a wheelchair, the investigators said.

On Friday, the source, a Western diplomat, said the investigators had found TNT residue on the remains of the man, who was sucked through the hole of the rapidly depressurizing plane and plummeted to the ground near the town of Balad, about 20 miles from Mogadishu. He was the only person killed in the incident. Two others were injured.

The Somali government initially indicated that a mechanical problem caused the blast. In a statement issued late Thursday by transport and aviation ministry said authorities were trying to get the “real cause of the plane incident.” Foreign experts had been enlisted to help in the investigation, the statement said. U.S. experts are participating in the inquiry.

Authorities have identified the apparent suicide bomber as 55-year-old Abdullahi Abdisalam Borle from the breakaway region of Somaliland in northern Somalia. The use of a wheelchair may have helped him slip through security, the Western diplomat said.

The increasing likelihood that a suicide bomber caused Tuesday’s explosion has again focused suspicion on al-Shabaab, the Islamist extremist group that is seeking to overthrow the Somali government. Its fighters have attacked military, government and civilian targets both inside Somalia and in neighboring countries. There has been no claim of responsibility, however, from al-Shabaab or any other group.