Latest military reports from Somalia indicate that Al-Shabaab used a rare female suicide bomber to orchestrate the deadly attack in the office of Mogadishu’s Mayor with main intended target being United Nations envoy to Somalia.
The UN envoy to Somalia, James Swan who had visited the Mayor’s office already had left the Municipality building at the time of the bombing that caught up key figures among them, Mogadishu Mayor Abdirahman Omar Osman.
The death toll in Wednesday’s attack has risen to over ten and several other officials wounded in the bombing. Those critically wounded including the Mayor Abdirahman Omar Osman were expected to be airlifted to Qatar for treatment, according to Mohamed Ahmed, a government official at the Mogadishu hospital treating the mayor.
The Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabaab through its military spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Musab claimed responsibility for the attack and confirmed that the new U.N. envoy, James Swan and who is an American national was the bomber’s intended target.
It remains unclear how the female bomber managed to breach in the security, walked into a security meeting and blew herself up a few yards away from the mayor. This is the fourth time the Al-Qaeda branch in Somalia used a female bomber in a suicide mission.
The security officials said Wednesday’s attack appeared to be a shift in Al-Shabaab tactics, as the militia group in the past attacks had rarely managed to infiltrate heavily fortified government buildings without first detonating one or more vehicle bombs.
