{"id":10169,"date":"2013-09-04T03:00:53","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T03:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/somali-president-escapes-unhurt-from-ambush\/"},"modified":"2013-09-04T03:01:59","modified_gmt":"2013-09-04T03:01:59","slug":"somali-president-escapes-unhurt-from-ambush","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/somali-president-escapes-unhurt-from-ambush\/","title":{"rendered":"Somali President Escapes Unhurt From Ambush"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{{Somalia&#8217;s president has escaped unhurt from an ambush on his military-escorted motorcade that the armed group al-Shabaab said it carried out.}}<\/p>\n<p>President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was approaching the port town of Marka, south of the capital Mogadishu, when al-Shabaab rebels said they fired rocket-propelled grenades at the convoy.<\/p>\n<p>Local police commander Abdikadir Mohamed confirmed Tuesday&#8217;s attack to the Reuters news agency and said the president arrived safely at Marka, 90 km from the capital. There was no immediate comment from the president&#8217;s office.<\/p>\n<p>The attack underscores the apparent ease with which al-Shabaab rebels can infiltrate areas under the control of Somali government forces and African peacekeepers and strike at the heart of government.<\/p>\n<p>They have continued to launch guerrilla-style attacks and kidnappings in the city despite being largely pushed out by Somali and African forces two years ago.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The president narrowly escaped. We are waiting for his return,&#8221; Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabaab&#8217;s spokesman for military operations, said.<\/p>\n<p>The rebels said they killed several soldiers and destroyed two armoured vehicles from the motorcade that was under escort by African Union and government troops.<\/p>\n<p>Al-Shabaab abandoned Marka and other urban strongholds last year under military pressure from advancing forces loyal to Mogadishu.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-3525 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/tyu-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source: Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{{Somalia&#8217;s president has escaped unhurt from an ambush on his military-escorted motorcade that the armed group al-Shabaab said it carried out.}} President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was approaching the port town of Marka, south of the capital Mogadishu, when al-Shabaab rebels said they fired rocket-propelled grenades at the convoy. Local police commander Abdikadir Mohamed confirmed Tuesday&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2000048036,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-10169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000048036,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10169.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10169.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10169.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10169.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10169.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton10169.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000048036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10169"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=10169"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=10169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}