Nairobi: A suspected suicide bomber who blew a hole in the fuselage of a Daallo Airlines plane last week and forced it to make an emergency landing in Mogadishu was meant to be on a Turkish Airlines flight, the Daallo chief executive said on Monday.
The bomber was sucked out of the plane through the one-metre wide hole when the blast ripped open the pressurised cabin in mid-air, officials said. The pilot landed the plane in the Somali capital, from where it had taken off.
No group has so far taken responsibility for the attack but a US government source last week said the US suspects the terrorist group Al Shabaab, which is aligned to Al Qaida, was responsible for the blast.
Mohammad Yassin, Daallo Airlines chief executive, said most of the passengers who were on the bombed flight were scheduled to fly with Turkish Airlines, but were ferried to Djibouti by one of his planes after the Turkish carrier cancelled its flight, citing bad weather.
“That particular passenger (who was behind the blast) boarded the aircraft on a Turkish Airlines boarding pass and was on the list for the Turkish Airlines manifest,” Yassin said by telephone from Dubai.
Yassin said Daallo picked up the 70 stranded Turkish Airlines passengers to fly them to Djibouti, including the suicide bomber. In total, the flight had 74 passengers.
Turkish Airlines did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Somalia, mired in conflict since civil war broke out in 1991, has few air links outside East Africa. In 2012, Turkish Airlines became the first major international commercial airline to fly out of Somalia in more than two decades.
Mogadishu’s heavily guarded airport, which is often compared to the Green Zone in Baghdad, has several safety perimeter fences and checkpoints. It houses a large UN compound along with several other Western embassies.
Somali officials said an investigation had been launched and arrests made, including airport workers.
CCTV footage released by the Somali National Intelligence Agency (NISA) appears to show two airport workers inside the terminal handing the suicide bomber a laptop stuffed with explosives, according to the government spokesman.
“Some of the people that we have arrested are cooperating,” spokesman Abdisalam Aato said. He said security at the airport has been stepped up and that the government was seeking new technologies to improve screenings.
Al Shabaab, which wants to topple the government and impose a harsh version of Sharia, has targeted the airport in the past. It has also attacked the Turkish embassy in Mogadishu.
Yassin said Daallo has been reassured by Somali officials that security was being improved, and will keep flying to Somalia. We have been there for 25 years,” he said. “Our efforts to keep Somalia linked to the rest of the world will continue.”
