Shebab warns Turkey over ‘military build-up’ in Somalia 13th May 2018 John Snow Featured, Somalia news 0 MOGADISHU, Somalia – The Islamist militant group Shebaab has vowed to launch fresh attack on targets run by Turkey in Somalia, a day after mortar rockets rained down on Turkish military base in Mogadishu. Sheikh Abulaziz Abu Muscab, Shebaab’s spokesman for military operations, says the group would double its attacks against Turkish mission over its incursion in Somalia. He says heavy loses had inflicted after mortar attack at Turkish military base in Somali capital. He did not mention the number of soldiers were killed or injured. There was no immediate response from Turkish mission over the Shebaab claims. Turkey has set up its biggest overseas military base in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, increasing Ankara’s presence in the Horn of Africa country. The base, which reportedly cost $50m, will train 10,000 Somali troops and has the capacity to train at least 1,500 soldiers at a time, according to Turkish and Somali officials. Turkey’s vast aid effort at the height of the 2011 famine endeared it to many Somali people, and it has continued to pour in aid, much of it from private companies. It has built schools, hospitals and infrastructure and provided scholarships for Somalis to study in Turkey. Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has visited Mogadishu twice, and when he made his first trip there in 2011 he became the first non-African leader to visit the war-ravaged nation in 20 years. With Reporting by Abdirisak Mohamud Tuuryare from Mogadishu, Somalia Somali President flies to Qatar

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