Al Shebab say latest suicide bomber was 60-year-old from Norway

MOGADISHU — Somalia’s Al Qaeda-linked Al Shebab rebels on Wednesday identified a suicide car bomber who struck a town recently captured by African Union troops as a 60-year-old Somali man who held Norwegian citizenship.

The attack in Buulo Burde in the south of the country on Tuesday targeted a hotel crowded with army officers and was followed by an assault by Shebab gunmen, leaving several dead, officials said.

“The attacker of Buulo Burde was a 60-year-old man who came from Norway to fight the enemies of Allah,” Shebab military spokesman Sheikh Abdul Aziz Abu Musab told AFP, naming the attacker as Abdullahi Ahmed Abdulle, a Norwegian national of Somali origin.

“He paid the sacrifice in order to be close to Allah by killing his enemies. The event is showing us that there is no age limit for jihad,” the spokesman said.

Norway’s PST intelligence service said they were investigating the report.

“In general, we are seeing a growing number of people leave Norway to join militant Islamist groups,” PST spokesman Siv Alsen told AFP.

The attack is the latest by Al Shebab, launched in apparent retaliation for a new offensive to root them out of areas of the war-torn country still under their control.

African Union soldiers, who are fighting the Shebab alongside Somali government troops, captured the small town of Buulo Burde from the Islamists last week.