At least 15 dead, multiple injured in terror attacks, central Somalia

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Somali authorities said on Wednesday that fifteen civilians were killed as a result of several car bomb attacks in the central Somalian town of Mahas. 

"The terrorists attacked Mahas town this morning using vehicles loaded with explosives. They have targeted a civilian area and we have confirmed that nine people, all of them civilians, died in the two explosions," local security official Abdullahi Adan told sources.

Several others were also wounded in the attacks which are being blamed on Al-Shabaab terror group, which happens to be affiliated with Al-Qaeda. 

Al-Shabāab al-Mujāhideen Terrorists dawn attack & overrun military & clan militia at Duduma Adde in Mahaas, Hiraan region of Central Somalia.

Earlier, terror group conducted suicide bombing targeting military officials in Mahaas township targeting govt … pic.twitter.com/d0v2lPPk2y

— WazalendoKE (@wazalendoKE) January 4, 2023

After having been defeated, the terrorist group "resorted to desperately targeting civilians, but this will not stop the will of the people to continue defeating them," said Osman Nur, a police commander in Mahas. "They have killed innocent civilians in the explosions." 

The blasts reportedly took place near a restaurant not far from a district administration building in Mahas.

Among the dead were women and children.

On August 24, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud declared he launched an "all-out war", vowing to eliminate Al-Shabaab after they had killed 21 people and injured 117 others in a deadly 30-hour hotel siege in Mogadishu.

On October 30, the President confirmed to reporters that the death toll of people who died in the October 29 twin bombing attack, in which two trucks loaded with explosives detonated near the busy Zobe junction close to key government offices, had reached 100.

Read more: Iranian fishermen abducted by Al-Shabaab in 2014 freed: MFA