International News September 23, 2023 17:43 A truck bomb explodes in Somalia
A police source said on Saturday that at least 10 people were killed after a truck bomb exploded at a checkpoint in the town of Beledweyne in central Somalia.
It is not yet clear who was responsible for the incident, but the terrorist Al-Shabaab movement is carrying out terrorist acts.
The police source added, “So far, I have seen 10 dead, including soldiers and civilians, and more than 10 wounded, but it is certain that the death toll will rise.”
Baledweyne is located in the Hiran region of central Somalia, which has recently witnessed battles between the army and the extremist Al-Shabaab movement linked to the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda.
The policeman said that among the dead were five police officers who opened fire on the truck in a failed attempt to prevent it from storming the checkpoint. He added that the nearby buildings and shops were turned into rubble, in addition to the checkpoint.
A woman, Halima Nour, who was close to the site, told Reuters that one of her relatives and others were in a nearby store and could not be reached. She said, “I don’t know what to say. All the stalls are now just rubble. I can’t find them.”
Somalia asked the United Nations to postpone the withdrawal of 3,000 soldiers from the African Union peacekeeping forces for three months, to allow time for its forces to reorganize their ranks.
The African Union Transitional Mission in Somalia (ATMIS), formed with a mandate from the United Nations Security Council, took over the mission from another African Union mission in April last year.
On June 30, Atmis completed the first phase with the withdrawal of two thousand soldiers, and the second phase of withdrawing forces was scheduled to begin by September 30, reducing the number of its military personnel to 14,626 soldiers.
In a letter dated September 19 to the Security Council, Somali National Security Advisor Hussein Sheikh Ali said that the campaign, which the government has been waging for a year to liberate areas from the terrorist Al-Shabaab movement in areas in the center of the country, has suffered “several setbacks” in the past weeks.
On August 26, the militants launched an attack in the Galgadud region, which led to the withdrawal of government forces from several towns.
Source: Agencies
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2023-09-23 13:44:36
