Hiiraan Online
Friday, March 4, 2016
MOGADISHU (HOL) – At least eleven people were wounded in militants’ mortar attack on the agricultural Somali town of Afgoye, near Somali capital after night fall on Thursday, police said Friday.
The town, which lies 20km north of Mogadishu, has seen numerous attacks by the Al-Qaeda linked Al Shabab group in recent weeks.
Security officials attributed to the increasing attacks’ as result of the militants’ large presence in nearby villages from where they orchestrate attacks on the town.
Residents said that mortars have severely damaged six houses and military barracks in the attack, sending hundreds of residents running for cover.
Somali troops have repelled a large scale attack involved fighters and suicide bombers in a major attempt to recapture the town last month.
The increasing attacks show that the militants group is retaining capability to move across the country as parts of its deadly insurgency aimed at recapturing the areas it lost to the allied forces in the past few years.
Despite the challenges, Somalia’s prime minister has vowed in September last year that his government would push militants out of the areas still under their control in 2016, a year Somalia proposed to hold presidential elections.