Addis Ababa, 16 April 2015 (WIC) – Militants attacked Somalia’s higher education ministry on Tuesday, using a suicide car bomb and gunmen for a strike that killed at least nine people, police said.
The Somali militant group al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the assault, saying they were targeting the headquarters of Western education in the country.
Al-Shabaab spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab said the attack was “targeted to destroy the ministry of higher education, which spreads Western-style curriculum to Somalia’s young generation.”
The claim of responsibility echoed similar statements from the Nigerian extremist group Boko Haram and suggested that al-Shabaab is trying to widen its targets beyond hostile governments and Christians.
It also comes less than two weeks after the group killed nearly 150 people in an assault on a university in northern Kenya.
In that strike al-Shabaab said its target was Christians.
The midday assault started when a vehicle drove up to the building and exploded, followed by men shooting.
Somalia police spokesman Col. Mohamed Qasim said at least nine people had been killed and a dozen wounded.
Among the wounded was the administrative director of the ministry of higher education, Ismail Moalim, who was in his office when the attack started, Col. Qasim said.
The minister for national security, Abdirizak Mohamed, said a group of elite forces rescued more than 50 students who were inside the building, which also houses the petroleum ministry.
Neither the higher education minister nor the petroleum minister were in the building when it was attacked, Col. Qasim said. Most of those who died appeared to be civilians who were caught at the first car bomb that hit the front gate of the building.
“I saw up to nine dead bodies, mostly women, scattered outside the building,” said Hassan Yusuf, a shopkeeper who was near the building at the time of the attack. (Wall Street Journal)
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