Abdifatah Hassan, a police officer in Mogadishu, told Anadolu Agency (AA) over the phone the suicide car bomb blast targeted a convoy carrying personnel of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). “We don’t know if there are AMISOM casualties,” he said.

“Al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist group al-Shabaab later claimed responsibility for the attack, saying that it had targeted United States officers working for a defense company called Pacific Architects and engineers who were part of the AMISOM convoy,” wrote the Daily Sabah.

Despite an international coalition of forces fighting to secure Somalia against Al-Shabaab, the terrorist group has become one of the largest and most active in the world and has maintained control over much of Somalia’s southern and southcentral regions.

Al-Shabaab expansion has made Somalia a region of terror for Christians, a closed country where Islamic extremists circulate freely, and the church operates in secret. Christians make up only 0.33% of the population and conversion means certain death or other forms of extreme violence or torture.  Somali Christians keep their faith concealed as Al-Shabaab desires to eradicate all believers from the country.

Source: persecution.org