African Union troops were deployed to Somalia in 2007 to defend the weak UN-backed government against attacks by Al Shabab.
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Somalia soldiers secure a damaged wall outside the U.N.’s office in Mogadishu on July 26.
The blasts occurred near the African Union base in the area of the Mogadishu airport, Somali police chief Gen. Mohamed Sheikh Hassan said.
Al-Shabab’s spokesman told al-Jazeera that the terrorist organization had carried out the attack to kill “occupying” foreign forces. A suicide bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle outside the United Nations Mine Action Service offices in Mogadishu, a Somali police official said.
A security source told VOA that private security guards charged with protecting United Nations personnel outside the AU compound were also at the checkpoint at the time of the attack.
“The two explosions were carried out by two courageous Mujahideen suicide bombers who targeted two places where the alleged peacekeeping troops are based”, the group said. Casualties there remained unclear.
Al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda, is waging an insurgency against Somalia’s weak United Nations -backed government with the goal of establishing an Islamist emirate, ruled by a strict form of Islam.
More than 22,000 peacekeepers serve in the multi-nation A.U. force.
Somali militant group Al-Shabab claims that one of the suicide bombers who killed at least 13 people in a twin attack near the capital’s airport on Tuesday was a former MP.
Al-Shabab said in its statement that Badbado was a “former lawmaker” who had “repented from the apostasy in the year 2010 when he publicly announced defecting from the apostates”.
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“Al Shabab is desperately seeking relevance and will do anything to keep in the news headlines”, the AU Special Representative for Somalia, Ambassador Francisco Caetano Madeira, said in a statement. Since then, the country has been convulsed by clan-based violence – driven by a battle for resources and power – and widespread destruction.
