United Nations
Reuters
Somalia has asked the United Nations to pause a planned drawdown of 3,000 African Union peacekeepers for three months to allow its security forces time to regroup after a militant attack forced them to withdraw from several recently captured towns.
The African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), which is mandated by the UN Security Council, took over from another AU mission in April last year.
A Somali police officer looks from the broken windows of the Pearl Beach Restaurant following an attack by Al Shabaab militants at the Liido beach in Mogadishu, Somalia, on 10th June, 2023. PICTURE: Reuters/Feisal Omar/File photo
TRUCK BOMB KILLS AT LEAST 10 IN SOMALIA
A truck bomb exploded at a checkpoint in the central Somali town of Beledweyne on Saturday, killing at least 10 people and obliterating nearby buildings, a police officer said.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible but the Islamist group al Shabaab frequently carries out bombings in the Horn of Africa country.
“So far I have seen 10 dead people including soldiers and civilians and over a dozen others injured, but the death toll is sure to rise,” police officer Ahmed Aden told Reuters.
Beledweyne is in central Somalia’s Hiran region which has recently witnessed battles between the military and al-Shabaab.
Aden said the dead included five police officers who fired on the truck in a failed attempt to stop it ramming the checkpoint. Nearby buildings and shops were reduced to rubble, along with the checkpoint, he added.
A woman, Halima Nur, who was near the site, told Reuters her niece and others had been in a nearby shop and could not be reached. “I do not know what to say, all the kiosks are now just rubble. I can’t trace my niece,” she said.
Al Shabaab has been battling Somalia’s central government for more than a decade, aiming to establish its rule based on strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.
– ABDI SHEIKH, Mogadishu, Somalia/Reuters
On 30th June ATMIS concluded the first phase of the drawdown of 2,000 troops and was due to enact a second troop withdrawal by 30th September, reducing its military personnel to 14,626.
In a 19th September letter to the UN Security Council seen by Reuters, National Security Adviser Hussein Sheikh Ali said the government’s year-long campaign to liberate areas from al-Shabaab militants in the central regions of the country had suffered “several significant setbacks” in recent weeks.
Ali said an attack by the Islamist militants on Aug. 26 in Cosweyn in Galgaduud region had triggered the retreat of government forces from several newly captured towns.
Somalia’s government has not provided a death toll for the attack, but one former official, citing military officers in Cosweyn, said as many as 130 soldiers may have been killed.
“This unforeseen turn of events has stretched our military forces thin, exposed vulnerabilities in our front lines, and necessitated a thorough reorganization to ensure we maintain our momentum in countering the al Shabaab threat,” Ali wrote.
“Our forces require a period of respite for recuperation while we continue our advance.”
Somalia’s information and interior ministers did not respond to requests for comment.
Al-Shabaab has killed tens of thousands since 2006 in its fight to overthrow Somalia’s Western-backed central government and implement its interpretation of Islamic law.
ATMIS is due to fully withdraw and hand over security responsibilities to the Somali state by the end of 2024. Somalia remains committed to that date, Ali wrote.
