Attackers targeting Somali police and government soldiers killed at least four people in Mogadishu on Monday, witnesses said, a day after mortar attacks punctuated the opening of a much-delayed peace meeting. In one incident, grenades were lobbed at police patrolling the central Bakara market.
Several explosions ripped through Mogadishu’s sprawling Bakara Market on Tuesday, killing two people in a fifth straight day of violence in the area. Somalia’s interim government says Bakara, one of the world’s biggest open-air arms markets, is a stronghold of Islamist insurgents it blames for almost daily guerrilla attacks.
Insurgents threw grenades at Somali government soldiers in Mogadishu’s Bakara market on Sunday, and the troops responded by firing their weapons indiscriminately, witnesses said. It was the second straight day of attacks in Bakara, famed as the site of one of the world’s biggest open-air arms markets
A landmine hidden in a box exploded in a livestock market in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, on Friday, killing five children who were playing football and wounding at least 10 others, witnesses said. Eyewitness Abdirizaq Sheikh said the blast at a livestock market ”shook the earth”.
Somali gunmen shot dead a senior government official in a troubled Mogadishu district and a teenager died when munitions left behind by African Union peacekeepers exploded, officials said on Tuesday. The seaside capital has witnessed an upsurge in attacks by insurgents targeting interim government officials.
A roadside bomb killed two soldiers in Somalia’s chaotic capital, Mogadishu, on Thursday, witnesses said, just hours after two aid workers were shot dead in an overnight attack in the north of the country. One woman at the scene of the blast said a vehicle carrying troops through a northern district of the city was lifted into the air by the powerful explosion.
Somalia’s trade minister and former defence minister escaped assassination attempts, but two others were killed in the latest Iraq-style guerrilla attacks on government targets, witnesses said on Wednesday. A roadside bomb hit Trade Minister Abdullahi Ahmed Afrah’s convoy late on Tuesday in a busy north Mogadishu street.
A suspected bomb blast killed five women outside a busy market in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Tuesday, witnesses said. Residents said an explosive device was apparently detonated by the burning of garbage in the city’s central Howlwadag area.
A Somali government soldier opened fire on Monday at a crowd clamouring for food aid in Mogadishu and killed at least three people, witnesses said. Three others were seriously wounded when the soldier fired in an apparent attempt to disperse a multitude trying to barge into a local authority building.
Somali authorities have announced plans to impose a curfew on the capital, Mogadishu, where at least five people were killed on Thursday in the latest violence to undermine government attempts to restore law. Two police officers died when hand grenades were lobbed at officers patrolling Mogadishu’s Bakara market, witnesses said.