By Yassin Juma
MOGADISHU
The Somali government has said that a total of 131 people have been killed in attacks by the Al-Shabaab militant group in 2014, representing a considerable drop in the death toll since 2006.
"Most of the deaths were caused by suicide bombings," Mohamed Osman, an official with the Somali National Security Ministry, told The Anadolu Agency.
"We have recorded 102 deaths by suicide bombings alone," he said, adding that 179 people had been injured in the attacks.
According to Somali police, 16 suicide bombings were registered in 2014, while 150 car bombings were thwarted.
Eighteen people were killed and 71 injured in 88 attacks on Somali army and African peacekeepers with the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).
Ten others were killed in attacks by IED-fitted cars, while only one person was killed by one of 40 grenade attacks recorded this year.
"Last year, the death toll was more than 400 people," said Osman.
"Those numbers clearly show that the government, with assistance from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), has been able to improve security," he insisted.
Somalia has remained in the grip of on-again, off-again violence since the outbreak of civil war in 1991.
The government, assisted by African Union forces, continues to battle the Al-Shabaab group.
Although it has been ejected from capital Mogadishu and most of its strongholds countrywide, Al-Shabaab has continued to target government officials and foreign troops deployed in the country.
"The statistics [that show declining attacks] are a plus for the government and especially for President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, whose record had been tainted by internal wrangles with the ousted prime minister and pressure from the international community to put his house in order," Ali Jama, a Somali political analyst, told AA.
"Mohamud's administration has also been blamed for alleged corruption by some top government officials," he noted.
Local journalist Mohamed Dahir, for his part, is not convinced by the government's figures.
"We have been reporting killings by Al-Shabaab on an almost daily basis," he told AA.
"If the number is accurate, it could simply mean Al-Shabaab committed more killings in neighboring Kenya than in Somalia," Dahir asserted.
www.aa.com.tr/en
