Abdirahman, director of Radio Hamar, was among three
journalists killed in a suicide bomb attack in a Mogadishu café, according to
news reports and local journalists.
Two unidentified men entered The
Village café at around 5:30 p.m. and detonated bombs, killing a total of 14
people and injuring 20, according to news reports and
local journalists. Four journalists were among the wounded.
Ali Mohamud Rage, a spokesman for Al-Shabaab, said the
bombing was carried out by supporters of the militant insurgent group,
according to Agence
France-Presse. “We did not directly order the attacks, but there are lots
of angry people in Somalia who support our fight,” AFP quoted Ali as saying.
The café was frequented by the press and civil servants,
leading local journalists to speculate that they were the targets of the
attack. “If anyone wanted to kill journalists en masse, that was the place and
the time,” said one journalist who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of
reprisal.
The blast also killed Abdisatar Daher Sabriye, head of news
for Radio Mogadishu, and Liban Ali Nur, head of news for Somali National TV,
according to news reports and local journalists.
The attack took place across the street from the National
Theater, where a bomb blast in April 2010 wounded at least 10 journalists, news
reports said.