Al-Shabaab killed at least eight in Somalia
At least eight people were killed and 17 injured in Mogadishu on Thursday in a car bombing claimed by the Al-Shabaab terrorist group, officials and witnesses said.
As reported earlier, the terror group intended to strike a United Nations security convoy passing near a school in Mogadishu. As a result, at least 13 schoolchildren and 4 staff were wounded. The Al-Shabaab terror group claimed the responsibility for the attack.
“A brick hit me in the head and blood was gushing onto my uniform,” said Abdisalan Omar Ibrahim, 13.
Mohamed Hussein, a nurse at the nearby Osman Hospital, told Reuters that both the hospital and the school across the street collapsed. He told Reuters that they “were shaken by the blast pressure, then deafened by the gunfire that followed”.
Al-Shabaab, directly translated as “the Youth”, is a jihadist militant organization whose primary aim is to create an Islamic state in Somalia.
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