{"id":30582,"date":"2014-07-09T07:17:21","date_gmt":"2014-07-09T07:17:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=30582"},"modified":"2014-07-09T07:17:21","modified_gmt":"2014-07-09T07:17:21","slug":"somali-presidents-palace-under-attack-from-al-shabab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2014\/07\/somali-presidents-palace-under-attack-from-al-shabab\/","title":{"rendered":"Somali president’s palace under attack from al-Shabab"},"content":{"rendered":"
Islamist al-Shabab militants have attacked the presidential palace in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and entered the heavily fortified compound.<\/p>\n
An al-Shabab spokesman said fighting was ongoing, but a government official told the BBC the attack was over and the militants had all been killed.<\/p>\n
President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was not at the palace at the time.<\/p>\n
The al-Qaeda-aligned al-Shabab group lost control of Mogadishu in 2011, but often carries out attacks in the city.<\/p>\n
The group has vowed to step up attacks during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, a suicide car bomb exploded near the capital’s parliament building, killing at least four people.<\/p>\n
The BBC’s Mohammed Moalimu in Mogadishu says President Mohamud was attending a function at the residence of the UN special envoy to Somalia, near the airport.<\/p>\n
A large contingent of the Somali military police accompanied him, leaving the presidential palace, known as Villa Somalia, mainly under the protection of African Union soldiers, he says.<\/p>\n
The presidential palace is the seat of government and many top government officials live and work there.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It is not clear if the prime minister and speaker of parliament were in the compound when it was attacked.<\/p>\n
“We have entered the so-called presidential palace. We have now captured some parts of the palace and fighting is still going on,” al-Shabab spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab told the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n
The spokesman said that 14 government soldiers had been killed in the attack.<\/p>\n
However a government official, who asked not to be named, told the BBC the situation was now under control and that attackers had all been killed.<\/p>\n
He declined to comment on the number of casualties.<\/p>\n
‘Bullets flying around’<\/p>\n
A security official told the AFP news agency that there were at least nine attackers involved in the raid and all had been killed.<\/p>\n
The raid is believed to have started with a car bomb at a barrier near the entrance to the compound, after which the militants attacked from two directions, he says.<\/p>\n
Halimo Nure, a local resident, told AFP that bullets were “flying around”.<\/p>\n
“There is shooting and gunfire, there are also explosions like they are using grenades.”<\/p>\n
Al-Shabab militants staged a similar attack on Villa Somalia in February when a car bomb exploded at the gate of the presidential palace, followed by a fierce gun battle inside.<\/p>\n
A high-level meeting on how to beef up security in the capital was held at parliament on Monday night, a statement from the prime minister’s office said.<\/p>\n
Despite losing Mogadishu and other key cities over the last three years, al-Shabab still controls many smaller towns and rural areas of the country.<\/p>\n
Some 22,000 African Union troops are helping the UN-backed government battle al-Shabab, which wants to create an Islamic state.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Islamist al-Shabab militants have attacked the presidential palace in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, and entered the heavily fortified compound. An al-Shabab spokesman said fighting was ongoing, but a government official told the BBC the attack was over and the militants had all been killed. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was not at the palace at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":30584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[988,14],"yoast_head":"\n