Seven al-Shabab militants who attacked a high-security prison in Somalia\u2019s capital have all been killed, the country\u2019s government has said.<\/p>\n
A huge explosion and gunfire were heard coming from Godka Jilicow \u2013 a detention centre that holds al-Shabab militants \u2013 in Mogadishu on Saturday evening.<\/p>\n
In a statement, al-Shabab said it released \u201call the Muslim prisoners\u201d from the facility and inflicted heavy casualties on those guarding the centre.<\/p>\n
The militants disguised themselves as soldiers in order to enter the prison, government-run news agency Sonna Live reported on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The government did not indicate how many of its security forces were killed during the incident, but gave its condolences to the families of \u201cthe fallen heroes\u201d.<\/p>\n
Likewise, al-Shabab did not give a death toll for its militants.<\/p>\n
The fighting began at around 16:40 local time (13:40 GMT).<\/p>\n
Godka Jilicow is located near the Somali presidential palace, in the heart of Mogadishu. It is manned by Somalia\u2019s National Intelligence and Security Agency (Nisa) and holds al-Shabab militants and other high-profile detainees.<\/p>\n
The attack is a major blow to Nisa and is likely to raise questions about how the militants were able to access one of the most heavily guarded areas in the capital.<\/p>\n
Al-Shabab is affiliated to al-Qaeda and has waged a brutal insurgency against the government in Somalia for nearly 20 years.<\/p>\n
Hours before Saturday\u2019s attack took place, the government had reopened key roads in Mogadishu which were previously closed for security reasons, citing improvements in the city\u2019s safety.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seven al-Shabab militants who attacked a high-security prison in Somalia\u2019s capital have all been killed, the country\u2019s government has said. A huge explosion and gunfire were heard coming from Godka Jilicow \u2013 a detention centre that holds al-Shabab militants \u2013 in Mogadishu on Saturday evening. In a statement, al-Shabab said it released \u201call the Muslim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-122584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}