defpro.com
March 29, 2010
advertisements
A landmine explosion near Mogadishu airport has killed Ahmed Sheik Mahmoud Qoorleex, the Hamarab district commissioner in the Somali capital and wounded the region’s deputy governor, government officials confirmed Saturday.Regional government spokesman Mohamed Abdullahi, who talked to reporters, confirmed the death of Qoorleex and added that after the landmine blast government forces cordoned off the whole area and made house to-house search.
“Our forces have arrested some suspects who are being questioned for their role in the blast that killed the district commissioner” the Banadir regional spokesman told reporters.
He said that the region’s deputy governor Warsame Mohamed Hassan has also been wounded by the landmine explosion which occurred as government forces were engaged in an operation to demolish hundreds of houses near Mogadishu airport.
Meanwhile, the Al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab militants have claimed responsibility for the mine explosion. “The Mujahideens have carried out the successful attack against the western-proxy government officials and more other attacks will follow” the group said in an emailed-press statement Saturday.
The Somali government has several times called on the extremists to sit down at the negotiation table with it, but the group said that it is committed to topple what they described as the western-puppet government and, instead, form an Islamic state at the horn of African country.
Experts say that the kind of Islamic law al-Shabaab wants to establish is the Taliban-like Islamic rule that was ousted in Afghanistan early 2002 after the US-led invasion that followed the 9/11 attacks in the United States.