Al-Shabaab kills Somali ex-lawmaker -Police

 

Gunmen with the Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab killed a Somali former lawmaker and injured a current Parliament member in a drive-by shooting in Somalia’s capital Thursday, police said. It marks the third deadly attack attributed to the group in as many days.

The attack in Mogadishu killed former Somali legislator Liibaan Abdullahi. Mustaf Mayow, a current lawmaker, was seriously wounded, police Capt. Muse Farah told CNN.

“Al-Shabaab assailants in a vehicle blocked the (lawmaker’s) car,” Farah said. “The attackers sped off.”

An Al-Shabaab spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack and vowed to carry out similar shootings against Somali lawmakers.

On Wednesday the Al-Shabaab militants attacked a United Nations convoy near Mogadishu’s airport killing at least four people, according to police

Three of those killed were civilians and another was a security force member, Police Col. Mohamed Hassan said.

Two United Nations vehicles were damaged, a U.N. official said, but no U.N. staff members were killed or injured in the attack.

The Mogadishu airport also acts as a staging ground for United Nations operations and for the African Union troops on a peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

On Tuesday Al-Shabaab militants raided a quarry in neighboring Kenya, separating non-Muslim workers from their Muslim counterparts and executing them, a spokesman for the group said Tuesday.

At least 36 bodies were found dumped in the quarry in the village of Kormey, near the Somali border, the Kenyan Red Cross said.

Al-Shabaab said the attack was retaliation for mosque raids that Kenyan security forces carried out last month to weed out extremists.

The group has been active in East Africa for years, waging an armed campaign that initially aimed to turn Somalia into a fundamentalist Islamic state, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.