(Mogadishu) At least ten people were killed, including local politicians, in a suicide attack claimed by Al-Shabaab jihadists on Saturday at a restaurant in Beledweyne, central Somalia, police and witnesses said .
Posted yesterday at 10:48 a.m.
Several senior local officials were among those killed and at least 16 people were injured, local policeman Mohamud Hassan told AFP by telephone, adding that a suicide bomber was behind the explosion.
“This is the worst attack I have known in this city,” he added, as security was tightened in Beledweyne, 340 km north of Mogadishu, due to local elections.
“A Shebab martyr fighter entered this place […] and among those killed are the deputy governor of the Hiiran region, the deputy head of social affairs of the district of Beledweyne and the deputy head of the intelligence services of Beledweyne,” Al-Shabaab said in a brief statement claiming responsibility for the attack.
According to witnesses, the explosion ravaged a terrace of the Hassan Dhiif restaurant, where people had gathered at midday for lunch.
A witness, Mahad Osman, said he saw the bodies of several dead and that many victims were taken to the local hospital.
“A lot of people were waiting to be served when the explosion happened,” he said, describing the scene of bloody chaos that followed.
Somalia, and particularly its capital Mogadishu, have been the scene of multiple attacks in recent weeks, most of which have been claimed by the jihadist movement of Shebab, still very established in rural areas.
Somalia is expected to complete voting for the lower house of parliament on February 25, more than a year late.
A dispute has pitted President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known by his nickname Farmajo, against Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble over repeated delays in the electoral process, which are worrying Somalia’s international donors.
Elections in Somalia follow a complex indirect model, in which state deputies and clan delegates choose the representatives of the national parliament, who in turn appoint the president.
Voting for the upper house was completed last year, while clan delegates have so far elected 159 of the 275 MPs who sit in the lower house.
The United States in a statement on Friday called on Somali leaders to hold the elections in a “credible and transparent manner” by February 25. “The United States will hold accountable those who obstruct or undermine the process,” the statement said.