Al Shabaab claims responsibility for Djibouti suicide attack
Tue May 27, 2014 5:44pm GMT
MOGADISHU May 27 (Reuters) - Somali rebel group al Shabaab was behind the
restaurant attack in Djibouti by two suicide bombers over the weekend that
killed a Turkish national and wounded several Western soldiers, the
militants said on Tuesday.
In the first attack of its kind in the tiny Horn-of-Africa state, a man and
a woman blew themselves up at the restaurant on Saturday evening when it was
filled with Western military personnel.
Djibouti, which hosts military bases for France and the United States,
contributes troops to the African Union mission (AMISOM) trying to stabilise
neighbouring Somalia to the south.
"The attack was carried out against the French Crusaders for their
complicity in the massacres and persecution of our Muslim brothers in the
Central African Republic and for their active role in training and equipping
the apostate Djiboutian troops in Somalia," al Shabaab said in a statement.
The al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab has carried out many gun and bomb attacks
outside Somalia, including as assault on a Kenyan shopping mall last year
that killed 67 people. On Saturday, it attacked the Somali parliament,
killing at least 10 security officers.
The European Union said members of the its naval mission EUNAVFOR Atalanta
and civilian maritime security mission EUCAP Nestor were wounded in
Saturday's Djibouti bombing.
Spain said three of its air force personnel, in Djibouti as part of the EU
mission, were hurt, one of whom was seriously wounded by shrapnel. The
Pentagon said no U.S. Defense Department personnel were wounded.
The militants and their sympathisers have carried out a series of attacks in
Kenya, another contributor to AMISOM, scaring away western tourists.
Burundi, Uganda, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone also have troops in the AMISOM
force. (Reporting by Feisal Omar; writing by Duncan Miriri, editing by
Stephen Addison)