By: Horndiplomat and Reuters
At least 18 people were killed in two separate explosions in Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region, Wednesday. An Al-Shabaab suicide bomber in Marka town killed district commissioner Abdullahi Ali Waafow and 10 others: a 2nd IED explosion in Afgoye town market killed seven other people. according to Senior Voa journalist Harun Maruf.
The al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militant group said it carried out both attacks.
In the first incident, two bombs planted in a livestock market in Afgoye town in Lower Shabelle region killed at least seven people, police and residents said.
The second explosion in the port town of Marka killed its district commissioner, state-run radio said.
Ahmed Farah, a Marka resident, said security personnel had sealed off the scene of the blast.
Al Shabaab military spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab said the Islamist group was behind both attacks.
“We killed in an attack the Marka district commissioner and those with him. In Afgoye we killed two soldiers in an explosion,” Musab told Reuters.
Al Shabaab has been fighting for more than 10 years to dislodge the country’s central government and establish rule based on its strict interpretation of Islam’s sharia law.
