Somalia: Al-Shabab claims responsibility for plane bomb

Officials probing the explosion initially suspected the bomber was able to bypass airport security by smuggling the device in his wheelchair before moving to another seat once on board, according to a source speaking to the Wall Street Journal.

The statement admitted that the bombing did not go as planned.

It added “While the operation did not bring down the plane, it struck terror in the hearts of the crusaders, demonstrating to the disbelievers that despite all their security measures and the strenuous efforts they make to hide their presence, the Mujahideen can and will get to them”.

The delegation also sought to explore ways of assisting Somali security institutions alongside AMISOM troops, execute their mandate of keeping the country safe and warding off threats posed by Al Shabaab and other armed militant groups.

The bomber was sucked out of the plane through a one-metre wide hole when the blast ripped open the pressurised cabin in mid-air, during a flight from Mogadishu to Djibouti.

Daallo’s chief executive, Mohamed Yassin, said the bomber was meant to be on a Turkish Airlines flight that had been cancelled due to bad weather.

According to the BBC, citing an emailed statement from the group, the attack was carried out as vengeance for Western intelligence operations in the country.

Now based in Kenya and Somalia’s rural areas, Al Shabaab is on the run, but still deadly. And the general public hasn’t escaped the group’s violence, as evidenced in a 2013 assault on an upscale mall in Nairobi.

In 2007, al-Shabab said it had shot down a civilian aircraft carrying supplies and eastern European engineers for the African Union Mission over Mogadishu’s airport.

In November 2013, Al-Shabaab deployed a laptop bomb at Mogadishu’s Hotel Maka.

The announcement by the Islamist group on Saturday came nearly a week after Somali intelligence officials released surveillance footage that appeared to show a passenger being given a laptop concealing the bomb. Three days after the plane attack, he was blown up in a auto bomb.