Hiiraan Online
Monday, February 8, 2016
Newly-released footage shows two men handing a laptop to a passenger after he passed through security. One of the two men is wearing a security jacket
MOGADISHU (HOL) - Somalia’s security forces arrested 20 people including civil aviation officials on suspicions of helping a suspected suicide bomber who sucked out of a passenger plane last week
after a bomb gaped a hole on the aircraft’s side, officials said Monday.
Somali government’s spokesman Abdisalam Atto confirmed the arrests, accusing two of the arrested persons of handing over a laptop to a suspected suicide bomber which he ‘used’ to bomb the plane.
The Daallo Airlines flight D3159 has made an emergency landing at the Mogadishu airport just five minutes after take off.
Mr. Atto said that the government would issue a ‘comprehensive’ report about the arrested suspects ‘within’ the next 36 hours, with security officials accused‘extremist groups of being behind the plot.
According to security sources, among those arrested included a man who was under police radar over suspicions that he had close relations with Al Shabab.
The development comes after CCTV images released by the Somali intelligence agency on Sunday showed the suspected bomber Abdullahi Abdisalam Borleh receiving a laptop from an alleged airport’s staffer inside the airport before he proceeded to the awaiting plane.
On Saturday, Somalia’s air and land transport minister Ali Jama Jangali confirmed that a bomb was the cause of the blast in Daallo Airlines plane which was heading to Djibouti before a blast rocked
inside the aircraft.
However, the minister warned that the result was a preliminary one from an ongoing investigation.
Meanwhile, the investigation into the bomb blast in the plane entered its seventh day Monday, with foreign technical experts including FBI technical experts joined the probe which officials said would be concluded this week.
Most of the flights bound for Mogadishu have been cancelled following the incident, as Somali government vowed it would beef up security of the Mogadishu international airport to prevent further security threats.