Bomb hits Somalia's biggest bank after militant threat
By Abdi Sheikh
MOGADISHU | Tue Apr 2, 2013 2:44pm EDT
(Reuters) - A bomb exploded outside the headquarters of Somalia's biggest
bank on Tuesday, wounding at least two people hours after al Qaeda-linked
militants ordered the company cease operations in areas under their control.
The blast outside Dahabshiil's office in Mogadishu shattered its doors and
littered the area with debris, police said.
"A remote-controlled bomb planted in front of Mogadishu's Dahabshiil bank
and money transfer headquarters injured two guards," police captain Nur
Hassan told Reuters.
Earlier, members of Islamist group al Shabaab walked into Dahabshiil
branches in areas of Somalia under their control and demanded they close,
accusing the company of working for aid agencies they have banned in their
territories, according to a statement on the movement's website.
Money transfer firms like Dahabshiil are vital to the Horn of Africa
country's fractured economy, which lacks a developed banking sector after 20
years of civil conflict.
Security in the coastal capital Mogadishu has improved greatly since al
Shabaab fled the city after a military offensive in August 2011. But
bombings and assassinations - blamed on militants - are still frequent.
Police said they had yet to identify who was behind the blast, but that a
mobile phone attached to the device was used to detonate it. It was the
first such attack to target a bank.
"The explosion crashed open the main entrance glass window but good luck it
was dark, and customers were not near," a Dahabshiil worker, who asked not
to be named, told Reuters.
Somalis typically transfer money via "hawala" agents, an informal system
based on trust, including $2 billion the Mogadishu government says Somalis
abroad send home every year.
Dahabshiil declined to comment on the threats by Shabaab, which in 2010
briefly banned money transfers by mobile phone, saying it helped feed
Western capitalism.
"I heard they accused us of allowing aid agencies to send cash through our
bank," Dahabshiil employee Sabdow Ali said from the al Shabaab-controlled
southern town of Hudur.
Al Shabaab has thrown out more than a dozen humanitarian groups from areas
under its control in the past three years, including the United Nations'
food agency, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Islamic
Relief.
The militants say aid creates dependency.
In control of much of the capital Mogadishu between 2009 and 2011, the group
has been driven from most major cities in central and southern Somalia by
African Union peacekeepers.
But in rural areas its fighters are notorious for amputating thieves' limbs
and stoning to death women suspected of adultery, under a strict
interpretation of sharia, Islamic law.
(Additional reporting by Feisal Omar; Writing by James Macharia; Editing by
Jason Webb)
