According to village chiefs and local officials who spoke to AFP, members of Sebab stopped at least 8 cars driving on the road connecting the towns of Balanduene and Mahas. They collected them, killed their occupants and set fire to the vehicles at the height of the village of Afar-Irdod.
At least 19 civilians were killed overnight Friday in an ambush by Shebaab (“Youth”) jihadists in central Somalia, the latest bloodbath two weeks after the extremist group’s spectacular raid on a hotel in the capital, Mogadishu.
According to village chiefs and local officials who spoke to AFP, Sebab members stopped at least 8 cars — minibuses and trucks — traveling on the road connecting the towns of Balanduene and Mahas. They collected them, killed their occupants and set fire to the vehicles at the height of the village of Afar-Irdod.
“Terrorists massacred innocent civilians who were traveling (…) last night. We do not yet have an exact number of victims, however 19 bodies have been collected. The attackers abducted many more people, whose fate remains unknown,” said Abdullahi Hared, a tribal chief in Balladwene.
According to the governor of Hiran, where the attack took place, Sebab members stopped cars leaving Balanduene and others moving towards it.
“They massacred innocent civilians after stopping the vehicles (…). The bodies are still piling up, among them are women and children. It could be more than twenty,” Ali Jeite told reporters.
In a press release released by his office last Saturday night, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud condemned the “murders of innocent civilians.”
“The government will spare no effort in the fight against terrorism,” the head of state assured.
Retaliation
Shebab said in its own statement that it targeted fighters from a tribe that had recently helped government forces fight its men.
He added that its members “killed 20 paramilitaries” and “people carrying material for them” and that it destroyed “eight of their cars”.
In late August, security forces and local paramilitaries wrested several villages from Shebab in the area.
Al-Shabaab, an organization that pledges allegiance to al-Qaeda, has been waging a guerrilla war against the federal government, which is backed by the international community, since 2007. Its fighters were driven out of the country’s main cities, including Mogadishu in 2011, but remain entrenched in vast swaths of the province and still pose a major threat to authorities.
Ali Gudlawe, the president of Hirsabel state, where the attack took place, offered his condolences to the victims’ relatives and promised in a press release that “clearance operations (against Shebab) will continue.”
His Jubaland state counterpart, Ahmed Madobe, called on Somalis to “not be discouraged” and to “unite to fight and liberate the country”.
“Total war”
After his election on May 15, Hasan Sheikh Mohamud has been faced with escalating Sebaab activity.
After the bloody attack two weeks ago on Mogadishu’s Hyatt Hotel—with the death toll reaching at least 21 dead and 117 wounded in the raid, which lasted some thirty hours—the head of state vowed “total war” on to eliminate the jihadist organization.
Allies of the Somali government, notably the US, Britain and Turkey, as well as the UN, had strongly condemned the action.
That attack was carried out at a “critical moment” for the federal government, which took power in early August, and was “clearly” aimed at “increasing the pressure on an already tense situation” after the elections, EU diplomacy said. .
The day after the election of Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, US President Joe Biden announced his decision to restore the US military presence in the country in the Horn of Africa, to offer assistance to Shebab operations. He thus reversed the decision of his predecessor, Republican Donald Trump, to withdraw most of the US forces deployed there at the end of his term.
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