Somalia Archives - Armoured & Luxury

Army hotel in Bulo-burde attacked by Somalia’s al-shabab

March 20, 2014 / By Armoured Cars / In security

Somali Islamist fighters have attacked a hotel in a strategic central town the militants lost control of last week.

A car bomb exploded by the hotel in Bulo-burde where African Union (AU) and Somali officers were staying and gunfire continued for another five hours, witnesses said.

Six soldiers were killed, including a top Somali army commander, the AU said.

The al-Shabab Islamist group said it was behind the attack and that 30 AU and army officers had been killed.

A spokesman for the 22,000-strong AU force in Somalia (Amisom), Col Ali Adan Humad, said all the al-Shabab fighters involved in the raid had been killed, without specifying numbers.

Al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda, has waged an eight-year insurgency to overthrow the weak UN-backed government and create an Islamic state in Somalia.

President Mohamud and David Cameron discuss Somalia

May 8, 2013 / By Armoured Cars / In security

Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud says Somalia has entered a new era that will herald the end of more than two decades of conflict.

He was speaking at a major international conference in London to help Somalia rebuild itself.

The UK and other donors pledged some $130m (£84m) in aid for Somalia.

UK Prime Minister David Cameron said huge progress was being made in curbing piracy and tackling an Islamist insurgency in Somalia.

Somalia is widely regarded as a failed state, hit by numerous conflicts since the overthrow of long-serving ruler Siad Barre in 1991.

The United Nations (UN) estimates that nearly 260,000 people died during a famine in the East African state from 2010 to 2012.

Suicide blast by offices of Somalia president and PM

February 3, 2013 / By Armoured Cars / In security

Two security guards have been killed in a suicide attack near the offices of Somalia’s president and prime minister.

Three other guards were also wounded when the assailant blew himself up at a checkpoint near the compound housing the offices in the capital, Mogadishu. The bomber was an ex-Islamist militant recently sacked from his job in the intelligence services, officials said. Militants aligned to al-Qaeda have lost control of major towns in the last 18 months but still carry out attacks.

The president and prime minister took office following elections last September which were considered the first fair polls in Somalia for 42 years. Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, an academic and civic activist, beat the incumbent in a run-off vote by MPs to become president. He then appointed his close associate, former businessman Abdi Farah Shirdon, as prime minister.