The attacker on Sunday targeted a queue of young recruits lining up outside the Damanyo base, killing at least 13 people, the Associated Press news agency quoted witnesses as saying.  “There was a loud explosion, and immediately people began running in all directions. Bodies were everywhere,” said Abdulkadir Hassan Mohamed, a tuk-tuk driver who witnessed the blast told AP. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Teenagers were lining up at the base’s gate when the suicide bomber detonated the explosives, witnesses told Reuters. Abdisalan Mohamed said he had seen “hundreds of teenagers at the gate as we passed by in a bus”. “Abruptly, a deafening blast occurred, and the area was covered by dense smoke. We could not see the details of casualties,” he added. A military captain who gave his name as Suleiman described the attack as he had seen it unfold. Dozens of abandoned shoes and the remains of the suicide bomber remained visible at the scene. Medical staff at the military hospital told Reuters they had received 30 wounded people from the blast and six of them had died immediately. Separately, an official told the Anadolu news agency that the attack had killed at least 11 people. The government has cordoned off the area. The attack echoed a similar incident in 2023 when a suicide bomber killed 25 soldiers at the Jale Siyad base, located opposite the Damanyo facility.

Sunday’s attack follows the assassination of Colonel Abdirahmaan Hujaale , commander of Battalion 26, last Saturday in the Hiiran region amid local reports of the al-Shabab armed group’s infiltration into government and security forces.

Al-Shabab has been fighting the Somali government for nearly two decades and frequently targets government officials and military personnel. (Al Jazeera/ Anadolu)