Kenya has condemned in the strongest terms, the double attack by Al Shabaab on the Baledogle Military Airfield in Baledogle and on EU advisers convoy in Mogadishu, in Somalia on Monday.
Kenya’s Foreign Affairs CS Monica Juma said both attacks demonstrate Al Shabaab’s “continuing appetite and determination to visit death and destruction on innocent people”.
The Al Qaeda-affiliated terror group claimed the two attacks on Monday, both targeting Western forces backing the government.
The US Africa Command and the Somali government said no coalition members were injured or killed.
The first attack, which used an explosives-laden vehicle and was followed by militias shooting, took place at the gates of Baledogle airfield, where the US military stations drones and trains Somali soldiers.
The second took place in Mogadishu, and involved the bombing of an Italian military convoy returning to the base from training as part of a European Union training mission in Somalia.
“This attack, though ineffective, demonstrates the direct threat Al Shabaab poses to Americans, our allies, and interests in the region,” said Major General William Gayler, U.S. Africa Command director of operations, the Washington Post reported.
Ambassador Mohamed Saleh, a diplomat and former Kenyan envoy to Riyadh, said Al Shabaab still remains as potent and lethal as ever.
“We always ignore the lull before the storm. Kenya remains a vulnerable soft target due to the long and porous common border,” he said.
Last year on October 1, on a Monday, a suicide bomber drove a car into a Western military convoy in Mogadishu, killing two people and injuring four.
The car packed with explosives, according to witnesses, hit an armoured military vehicle belonging to the Italian military outside the Jaalle Siyad military base in the Somali capital’s Hodan district.
The Al Shabab militant group claimed responsibility for the attack.
