MOGADISHU: A suicide bomber on Monday struck an army training camp in Mogadishu, Somalia, killing at least twenty soldiers, officials said.
The attack at the Jaalle Siyad Military Academy was immediately claimed by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab group.
Somali parliament member Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimu said that more than twenty people were killed in the explosion, AFP reported late Monday night.
Moalimu said that the victims were not ordinary boys, they were servicemen who stood to defend their homeland from the terrorists.
Another lawmaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the toll stood at twenty-seven with al least sixty others wounded.
According to witnesses, a lone militant entered the base, where the fourteenth infantry brigade were about to start a refresher training course, and exploded a vest he was wearing.
A somali military member Mohamed Hassan said that he was at a nearby army camp when the explosion occurred and they rushed to the scene, it was horrible.
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He added that investigations are going on and the casualities may go higher.
It was not immediately clear how the attacker gained access into the camp.
The fourteenth infantry brigade was set up to commemorate the deadliest attack in the country on 14 October 2017 when a truck full of explosives exploded in a bustling commercial district, killing 512 people and wounding another 295.
The Somali legislature offered condolences to the families of the soldiers killed in the attack. Abdulahi Omar Abshirow, deputy speaker, said that this is a national tragedy.
Al-Shabaab’s terrorist activities
Al-Shabaab, which is linked to Al-Qaeda, has been trying to topple the foreign-backed government in Somalia since 2007 through a bloody insurgency.
Its militants were driven from the capital Mogadishu in 2011 but it remains a dangerous force, despite a big offensive started last August by pro-government troops, backed by African Union forces and US air strikes.
The group still controls parts of countryside and continues to wage huge strikes on civilian, military, and political targets.
A roadside explosion blamed on the militant group this month killed 8 members of a family near a village outside Buloburde, which lies nearly 220 kilometres north of the capital.
