On Sunday, Al-Shabaab militants detonated a bomb before storming a government structure in the capital of Somalia, killing at least five people, according to the ministry of information.
Around noon, Al-Shabaab attackers stormed the building housing the mayor of Mogadishu‘s office and engaged security troops in gunfire, according to the ministry and eyewitnesses.
According to the ministry’s Facebook page, security killed six of the extremists and cleared the area by around six o’clock.
Since the administration of President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud initiated an offensive against the al Qaeda-affiliated group in August, Al-Shabaab has increased attacks as a sign of resistance.
“We were in the office and we were deafened by a blast. We ran out. Gunfire followed,” Farah Abdullahi, who works in the mayor’s office, told newsmen.
Aamin Ambulance Services director Abdikadir Abdirahman provided a higher estimate of the fatality toll, stating that eight civilian victims’ bodies had been transferred.
The mayor’s office is located in the local government building, which is located in a secure part of Mogadishu.
Concrete barriers and numerous checkpoints line the local roads. The distance between the building and Villa Somalia, the president’s office, is around 1.5 kilometres (1 mile).
In a statement, Al-Shabaab claimed that after its suicide bombers killed the building guards, “foot fighters infiltrated the building.”
The movement often conducts bombings and gun attacks all around the nation while opposing the government since 2006 and attempting to impose its own interpretation of Islamic law.
State TV in Jubbaland, one of the country’s semi-autonomous states, reported on Sunday that regional and Somalia federal forces had launched attacks on al Shabaab and taken control of the town of Janay Abdale from the militants. This was a sign that the government was extending its offensive against the group into the country’s south.