Somalia | GlobalPost

Abdulle is the fifth journalist to be killed in Somalia this year.

Al Shabaab still controls much of southern and central Somalia, but is under increasing pressure from Kenyan forces in the south and Ethiopian forces in the West.

Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed was viewed as an obstacle to peace over his refusal to negotiate with Islamist groups and tendency to carve up positions of power along clan lines.

"We got a man with the remote control seconds after he detonated the car. We also arrested three other suspects," police spokesman Abdullahi Barise told Reuters.

Tebbutt, 56, will be flown to Nairobi after her relatives raised a ransom for her release.

Somalia's national theater re-opened its doors for the first time in 20 years on Monday, after being closed since the country descended into civil war in the 1990s.

Six people were killed overnight when mortars landed on a refugee camp near Somalia's presidential palace in the capital Mogadishu, according to reports.

NAIROBI, Kenya — Villa Somalia is a hilltop quarter in Mogadishu. It is home to government ministries, the presidential palace, meeting halls and ministers' homes. It is guarded by African Union peacekeepers and Somali government soldiers.

To get right inside you have to pass through at least three separate roadblocks with metal booms, staggered Hescos and armed sentries. It's the most fortified and protected place in Mogadishu, outside of the AU military base and airport, it's the closest thing the city has to a Green Zone.

But none of that stopped an Al Shabaab suicide bomber who blew himself up inside Villa Somalia on Wednesday. The death toll is unclear, ranging from five (if you believe the government) to 17 (if you believe Al Shabaab).

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The significance of this attack is not the number of dead, but the location of the bombing, at the supposedly secure heart of the Transitional Federal Government and at a time when Mogadishu is gradually regaining a sense of normality.

Although Villa Somalia is an obvious target — GlobalPost was there a couple of years ago when mortars rained down — it should not be a possible one.

The fact that a suicide bomber can slip past all the defenses and detonate his explosives shows once again just how shaky the capital's security really is and reminds everyone that Al Shabaab may be down but is certainly not out.

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Fighting lasted four hours, during which Al Shabaab claims to have killed 73 Ethiopians while the Somali government says it killed 48 militants.

The first major commercial airline in more than two decades has landed at war-torn Somalia’s Mogadishu airport.

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Somalia's national theater re-opens its doors after 20 years

Somalia: Mortar attack in Mogadishu kills 6 refugees, including a family

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First international flight in two decades arrives at Mogadishu