Somalia’s al-Shabaab insurgents have claimed responsibility for an explosion that left a gaping hole in an Airbus A321 last week.
The suspected suicide bomber was sucked out of the Daallo Airlines plane through a 1m-wide hole when the blast ripped open the cabin in midair on 2 February. The aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing in Mogadishu.
“Harakat al-Shabaab al Mujahideen carried out the bombing as a retribution for the crimes committed by the coalition of western crusaders and their intelligence agencies against the Muslims of Somalia,” al-Shabaab said in an emailed statement.
Last week, US government sources said investigators suspected the Islamist militant group, which has links to al-Qaida, was responsible.
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.
The airline had picked up the 70 stranded Turkish Airlines passengers, including the suicide bomber, to fly them to Djibouti. A total of 74 passengers were on board the plane.
US officials said investigators believe the bomb was hidden in a laptop, and that the bomber had a connection to an airline or airport personnel. CCTV footage appears to show two airport workers inside the terminal handing the suicide bomber a laptop, a government spokesman said.
Al-Shabaab, which wants to overthrow the Somali government and impose a harsh version of Islamic law, has targeted the airport in the past. It has also attacked the Turkish embassy in Mogadishu.
Somalia, which has been mired in conflict since civil war broke out in 1991, has few air links outside east Africa. Turkish Airlines became the first major international airline to schedule flights to and from the country in more than two decades in 2012.
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