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Title: Attack on Somali President’s Motorcade by Al Shabaab Militants
Emergency vehicles assembled at the site of a recent explosion close to the Presidential Palace, also referred to as Villa Somalia, located in the Hamar Jajab district of Mogadishu, Somalia, on March 18, 2025.
Al Shabaab militants claimed responsibility for a bomb attack aimed at Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as his motorcade was passing through the capital on Tuesday. However, two senior officials within the government and military informed Reuters that the president emerged unharmed from the incident. Presidential adviser Zakariye Hussein later posted on X, assuring that Mohamud was "safe and already on his way to the front lines."
Witnesses to the attack, comprising both soldiers and locals, confirmed that the president’s convoy was struck. A Reuters journalist present at the scene reported seeing the bodies of four individuals who lost their lives in the explosion near the presidential palace.
"Our fighters specifically targeted a convoy of vehicles transporting Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as it departed the presidential palace en route to the airport," the Al Shabaab group announced via a statement on their Telegram channel, which is linked to al-Qaeda.
Although Al Shabaab frequently perpetrates attacks in Somalia as part of a long-standing effort to overthrow the government, this incident marked their first direct assault on President Mohamud since 2014, during which they bombed a hotel where he was delivering a speech.
Just hours after the attack, state media broadcast footage of the president in the Adan Yabal district of the Middle Shabelle region in Somalia, where government forces are engaged in combat against a significant Al Shabaab offensive that has been ongoing for three weeks.
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