Al-Shabaab attack Somali education ministry

Gunmen stormed the headquarters of Somalia’s education ministry in the country's capital, Mogadishu, last Tuesday after a suicide car bombing, a two-pronged attack that killed at least 12 people and injured 16 others, write Omar Nor and Jason Hanna for CNN.

The Islamist militant group al-Shabaab is responsible for the attack, group spokesman Abu Musab said. The attack began when two suicide bombers detonated their car at the entrance of the building housing the Ministry of Education, Culture and Higher Education, Somali National Security Ministry spokesman Mohamed Yusuf said. Five gunmen then entered the building, shooting people inside, he said.

Security guards at the building, and, later, Somali special forces battled the gunmen inside, witnesses said. Soldiers from the African Union, who are in Somalia in part to support the government's fight against al-Shabaab, teamed up with Somali security forces to shoot and kill the five attackers, Yusuf said. Four Somali soldiers and eight civilians were killed in the attack, according to Yusuf.

Somalia-based al-Shabaab has battled the country's government for years, aiming to overthrow it and turn the nation into a fundamentalist Islamic state. Earlier this month, al-Shabaab gunmen stormed Garissa University College in neighbouring Kenya, killing 148 people, mostly students.
Full report on the CNN site