Forget secular education: Somali militant’s message before suicide attack

Man responsible for huge blast in Mogadishu that left 100 dead said young people should focus on jihad The suicide bomber who killed more than 100 people, including students seeking scholarships, in an attack near Somalia’s education ministry was a school dropout who had declared that young people should wage jihad and forget about secular education. Bashar Abdullahi Nur, who was to blame for the huge explosion on Tuesday that covered the capital, Mogadishu, in dust up to half a mile away, gave an interview before the attack. “Now those who live abroad are taken to a college and never think about the hereafter. They never think about the harassed Muslims,” he said in the interview broadcast on Wednesday by a militant-run radio station. “They wake up in the morning, go to college and studies and accept what the infidels tell them, while infidels are massacring Muslims.” The UN said on Thursday that more than 100 people had died in the explosion in Mogadishu, in an attack that killed some of Somalia’s brightest young minds, including students gathered around a noticeboard to find out who had been awarded scholarships from the Turkish government. The blast happened near a building housing several government ministries, but the precise target was not immediately clear. However, it would not be the first time that al-Qaida linked militants have targeted students. In 2009, al-Shabaab attacked a graduation ceremony, killing medical students and doctors. Shamsul Bari, the UN’s independent human rights expert in Somalia, said: “These attacks, which targeted some of the country’s very few university-level students, as well as the dedicated civil servants working to enhance Somali public institutions and social services under extremely difficult circumstances, are a direct blow to the fabric and future of the nation.” Al-Shabaab’s spokesman has vowed to increase attacks “day by day” as part of an effort to defeat the weak UN-backed Somali government and the 9,000 African Union peacekeepers stationed in the country. An ultra-conservative Islamist group, al-Shabaab is known for its harsh punishments, such as chopping off the hands of thieves and stoning adulterers to death. The organisation considers secular education as a form of western invasion into the minds of Muslims. Suicide bombings, unheard of in Somalia before 2007, have become increasingly frequent. Islamists have shown an increasing ability to carry out sophisticated large-scale bombings against high-profile targets, such as Tuesday’s attack, which occurred in a government-controlled area of the city. Somalia has been mired in violence since 1991 when civil war broke out. The country has also been suffering from its worst famine in 60 years: the US says 29,000 children have died since it began, and the UN estimates that a further 750,000 more are at risk of starving to death in the next few months. Al-Shabaab fighters have compounded the suffering by preventing aid agencies from helping famine victims in areas under militant control in southern Somalia. Somalia Global terrorism Africa guardian.co.uk

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