Al-Shabaab claims car bomb attack in Somali capital

Al-Shabaab has taken responsibility for a car bomb explosion in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, that killed at least five people earlier today. The attack took place shortly after Somali authorities executed a journalist with ties to the extremist group.

“It was a sad incident,” said Abidqadir Mohammed, the district’s commissioner.

The car bomb detonated during lunchtime, outside a packed restaurant behind the municipal government headquarters in the Hamarwenye district.

The local al-Qaeda affiliate has carried out a string of deadly attacks in Mogadishu on targets ranging from government officials to civilians in restaurants and hotels.

“Now, their attacks are random regardless of whether it’s in a public place or a government institution,” said Abdillahi Hassan, a local tailor who witnessed the attack.

The terror group’s influence has also spread across the region. Kenya has seen bouts of attacks from al-Shabaab since it began sending troops to hamper the group’s influence in Somalia.

“They have been more willing to attack civilians,” said Stig Jarle Hansen, author of Al-Shabaab in Somalia: The History and Ideology of a Militant Islamist Group. “When they take responsibility for something, it’s almost always Shabaab who does it.”

The attack followed the execution by firing squad of Hassan Hanafi Haji, a former journalist charged with killing five fellow journalists on behalf of al-Shabaab. Last year, Haji was extradited from Kenya and accused of helping the terror group identify journalist targets between 2007 and 2011. Haji pressured many media outlets to paint al-Shabaab in a favorable light, and many caved into self-censorship out of fear.

“Justice served. It was his turn to taste the pain of death,” said one journalist who witnessed Haji’s execution and asked not to be named over fear of reprisals.

Al-Shabaab did not claim the explosion was retaliation for Haji’s execution. But his case shed light on the plight of journalists in the country. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 18 journalists were killed in Somalia last year.

“I don’t think it’s related,” Hansen said. “But the relations against the press in Somalia is something that deserves our attention.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.