Somalia's deadliest Islamic terrorist attack: 276 dead

An incredibly massive bomb blast, the likes of which have never been seen in Somalia's capital of Mogadishu has killed 276 people and injured around 300 more, the Somali information minister said Monday. This is the deadliest single attack in the Horn of Africa nation and the death toll could rise higher.

Minister of Information, Abdirahman Osman, called the attack "barbaric" and if you consider the word, he isn't totally wrong. 

The Ottoman Corsairs Barbary pirates, from where the word is derived, operated from North Africa and were mainly based in ports of Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Salé and Rabat. The area was known as the Barbary Coast, a term derived from the Berber natives. Their predatory behavior extended throughout the Mediterranean.

They seized ships and engaged in Razzias, raids on European coastal towns and villages, mostly in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, and they even went as far as the British Isles and the Netherlands.

The main purpose for the attacks was to capture Christian slaves for the Ottoman slave trade and the general Muslim slavery market in North Africa and Middle East.

And although this attack wasn't meant to capture anyone, but meant to kill as many people as possible, the actors in the attack were of the same religion and mindset as their predecessors.  

So yes, it was a barbaric attack. All jihadi attacks are barbaric and done in the name of religion. A truck bomb targeted a crowded street near major government ministries.

According to Osman, Turkey and Kenya have already offered to send medical assistance.

The Somali government blames al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab for the attack that it's now calling a "national disaster." The terror group vowed to increase attacks after President Trump and Somalia's recently elected president said they will introduce new military efforts against them.

"Nearly all of the wounded victims have serious wounds," Samir Abdi, a nurse tending to the wounded said. "Unspeakable horrors." The wounds were horrific.

Rescue workers searched for survivors trapped under rubble of the Safari Hotel--it was mostly destroyed and is close to Somalia's foreign ministry.

Not surprisingly, the United States and the U.N. condemned the bombing. The U.S. sounding a lot like the Obama administration used words and said "such cowardly attacks reinvigorate the commitment of the United States to assist our Somali and African Union partners to combat the scourge of terrorism."

I'm sure John Kerry was happy to hear us use words that he so often used. Only we forgot to add that we condemned it "in the strongest possible terms." That should scare the hell out of al Shabaab.

Spokesman for UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the attack, causing many al-Shabaab jihadis to commit suicide out of fear of being strongly condemned. 

Wait . . . no, they didn't. But at least we're still using the same strong words.


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