• At least five civilians were killed.
• Attackers from the group broke into the building housing the mayor.
• Security troops killed six members of the armed organization.

Mogadishu: According to the ministry of information, at least five civilians were killed when members of the al-Shabab armed group detonated a bomb before storming a government facility in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.

Around midday (09:00 GMT), attackers from the group broke into the building housing the mayor of Mogadishu’s office and exchanged gunfire with security personnel, according to the ministry on Sunday.

According to its Facebook page, security troops killed six members of the armed organization and secured the area around 6 p.m.

Since President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s government launched an offensive against the al-Qaeda-linked group in August, al-Shabab has increased its attacks in a show of defiance.

“We were in the office when a blast deafened us. We were out of time. “Then there was gunfire,” Farah Abdullahi, who works in the mayor’s office, said.

According to Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of Aamin Ambulance Services, sixteen persons were hurt in the attack.

The mayor’s office is in the local government headquarters building, which is in a well-protected section of Mogadishu.

Al-Shabab announced in a statement that its bombs struck “then foot fighters entered the building after murdering the building guards”.

The armed group, which has been fighting the government since 2006 and attempting to impose its own interpretation of Islamic law, carries out bombings and gun attacks across the country on a regular basis.

One of Somalia’s semi-autonomous states reported on Sunday that regional and Somalia federal forces had launched attacks on al-Shabab and taken control of Janay Abdale town from the armed group, indicating that the government was expanding its offensive against the group into the country’s south.

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