Land Mine Kills 5 Soldiers and Wounds 7 in Somalia’s Puntland

Somalia's Puntland

At least 5 soldiers have been killed and seven others wounded by a roadside land mine explosion in the commercial capital of the Somali semi-autonomous state of Puntland last night, eye witnesses and healthy officials confirmed. Residents say that the 5 soldiers were killed when a remote-controlled mine targeted a convoy of security forces in the centre of Bosasso at about 11:30 p.m. on Monday night during a routine operation by the security forces. “We have received 7 wounded soldiers, some of them in a serious condition” a nurse at the Bandar Qasim hospital who demanded anonymity told Newstime Africa by telephone.

According to eye witnesses, more than 20 suspects have been arrested in an operation by security forces after the explosion and are being investigated for any connection to the attack. “The forces cordoned off the area and arrested dozens of people since midnight last night” a resident Abdi Ahmed Muse” said by telephone.No group has yet claimed responsibility of the attack and the Puntland authorities did not comment about the latest incident. Bosasso, the largest city in Puntand which is about 1505 kilometers north east of the capital, has been experiencing an escalation of insecurity for the past several months.

The Puntland state was established in 1998, by the former Somali leader Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and has been peaceful since then, but insecurity is now fencing the region.

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