The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI’s Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). On July 5, 2022, the Shahada News Agency, the official news outlet of Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Somalia, Harakat Al-Shabab Al-Mujahideen (Al-Shabab) reported that an Al-Shabab security detachment detonated two IEDs at the Somali Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the capital, Mogadishu. According to the report, at least three security guards at the facility were killed in the ensuing blasts. At the same time, the report claims, another Al-Shabab security detachment detonated two additional IEDs on a group of Somali police forces in another part of the capital, wounding one policeman, although the extent of his injuries is not known.[1]

It should be noted that on the following day, July 6, Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for another high-profile attack against a symbol of the Somali government, when its operatives assassinated “the commander of the Somali Armed Forces in the city of Afgoye,” about 30 km southwest of Mogadishu.[2] At the beginning of July 2022, Al-Shabab ambushed a joint convoy of U.S. and Somali Special Forces north of Mogadishu,[3] and in recent months it has claimed responsibility for a series of operations perpetrated against regime targets in the capital.[4]