On July 27, the Turkish Embassy in the Somali capital Mogadishu was hit by a suicide car bomb attack. One Turkish security officer was killed and three others were seriously wounded. Soon, al-Shabab — an al-Qaeda-affliated militant group — claimed the bombing on its Twitter account. They said that Turkey was targeted for “supporting the apostate regime [in Somalia] and seeking to suppress the Sharia order.”
Arguably, it is not too difficult to understand why al-Shabab is hostile to Turkey. The organization — whose name means “youngsters” in Arabic — is fighting against the central government in Somalia, which enjoys the support and friendship of Ankara. Since 2011, when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan became the first non-African leader to visit Somalia in nearly 20 years, Turkey has poured $400 million of aid to this Muslim nation traumatized by famine and civil war. The growing Turkish presence in Somalia is welcomed by most Somalians and their government, but not by al-Shabab which condemns other Muslims as “apostates” simply for not accepting their harsh and militant creed.
