2 killed in attack on market in southeastern Somalia

By Yassin Juma
Sunday, March 22, 2015

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MOGADISHU (AA) – At least two people were killed and five others injured on Saturday in an attack with a grenade in Afgoye, a town of the southeastern Lower Shebelle region, a police official has said.

“The terrorists threw a grenade at the Afgoye market,” Ismail Aden told The Anadolu Agency. “There were many people at the market when it happened,” he added.

The official noted that the victims were all civilians, adding that injured victims were taken to Somali capital Mogadishu to receive treatment.

The attack had originally targeted a tax office in the area, according to police. It said the attackers had fled the scene soon after the attack.

Afgoye, a farming town 30km south of Mogadishu, was a major stronghold of the Qaeda-linked militant group Al-Shabaab before it was recaptured by Ugandan troops working as part of an African peacekeeping mission in Somalia in 2012.

Government tax officials had been the target of repeated attacks by Al-Shabaab in the past.

Soon after the attack on Saturday, the militant group claimed responsibility for it on Twitter.

Al-Shabaab, which is waging an insurgency against the Somali government, has recently suffered several significant blows, losing most of its strongholds in southern and central Somalia to government and African Union troops.

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