GALKAYO , Somalia, March 31 (UPI) — A suicide bomb killed at least six people in Galkayo, Somalia, Thursday, with the Islamist terrorist group al-Shabab taking responsibility.
A man with explosives strapped to his waist blew himself up near the Unlay hotel in the city of about 140,000. One victim was the city’s finance director, police officer Shire Yusuf reported. An al-Shabab spokesman told Radio Andulus, a radio station supportive of the insurgency, that the finance director was the target of the attack.
Al-Shabab, which is aligned with al-Qaida, has conducted an insurgency in Somalia since 2006, but Puntland and Galmudug, semi-autonomous parts of northeastern Somalia which include Galkayo as a divided city on the border between the two regions, has avoided much of the violence until earlier this month.
Puntland forces engaged al-Shabab fighters on the Somalia coast, and said they killed 170 insurgents. Earlier this week the Galmudug government said it fought al-Shabab militants, killing 115 and capturing 110, who fled from Puntland.
