Mogadishu, May 26: The Somali government rejects media reports of an attack on the Presidential Palace by al-Shabab fighters as “false and fabricated”.
The renewed clashes this week in Mogadishu between the government’s Ahlu Sunna troops, backed by African Union peacekeepers, and the al-Shabab fighters has left dozens of people, mainly civilians, dead and wounded. But no attack has taken place on the Villa Somalia, a government statement said on Tuesday.
Various media had reported that Villa Somalia was being attacked with mortars where a dozen people were killed. “There was no fighting or mortars landing at the Presidency and nobody died as a result,” the statement added.
The Presidency refuted the insurgents’ claim that they will attack the Presidential Palace as “pure fantasy,” saying that it “will not happen because the groups’ have been repeating the same stuff since January 2009.”
——-Agencies