Somali Shabab storm ministry building to kill 15

A man runs for cover during fighting following a car bomb that was detonated at the gates of the education ministry building in the capital Mogadishu, Somalia on April 14, 2015. Farah Abdi Warsameh/APShow more

MOGADISHU // Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked Shabab militants killed 15 people and wounded 20 on Tuesday when they blasted their way into the higher education ministry with a car bomb before storming the building.

Police and witnesses said the car bomb caused a huge explosion which allowed the gunmen to force their way shooting into the fortified building.

“Six people have been killed, most of them civilians, but the ministry building is secure now and government forces are in full control,” said police official Ahmed Weli Malim, after a gun battle lasting around an hour.

“A car loaded with explosives rammed the gate,” police official Mohamed Dahir said.

Witness Idil Malim reported seeing several people wounded or killed.

“There were several people lying dead at the scene,” he said.

Shabab spokesman Abdulaziz Abu Musab claimed responsiblity, boasting that their gunmen had been in “fully in control” of the ministry, as well as entering a neighbouring building housing the oil ministry.

As government forces retook the compound and fighting ended, it was not immediately clear what happened to the gunmen, and whether they had been killed in the assault or had managed to escape.

The building is in the K5 district of the capital, which has been hit by a string of similar attacks in recent months.

The Shabab rebels stage regular attacks in the capital as part of their fight against the country’s internationally-backed government and African Union forces supporting it.

A car bombing to force entry into fortified buildings followed by an armed raid has become a trademark tactic of the extremists.

Somalia has been unstable since the collapse of Siad Barre’s hardline regime in 1991, and the country’s new government is being supported by a 22,000-strong African Union force that includes troops from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.

Shabab fighters have carried out a string of revenge attacks in neighbouring countries, notably Kenya and Uganda, in response to their participation in the AU force.

It carried out its deadliest attack yet earlier this month, when Shabab gunmen massacred 148 people in a day-long siege of a university in Kenya’s northeastern town of Garissa.

The attack on the university was Kenya’s worst since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy in Nairobi, and the Shabab’s bloodiest massacre.

The Shabab later warned of a “long, gruesome war” unless Kenya withdraws its troops from Somalia, as well as warning the government in Mogadishu it would continue to attack them on home soil.

Last week the government in Mogadishu issued bounties for 11 top leaders of the Shabab, with US$250,000 (Dh918,290) offered for the militant group’s chief, Ahmad Umar.

* Agence France-Presse