At least 36 were killed and hundreds wounded in violence across central Somalia, while the normally quiet Somaliland lost an infantry commander to a roadside bomb, following threats from al-Shabaab, the major insurgent faction in the nation, to attack Somaliland and other neighbors for meddling in southern Somalia.
Al-Shabaab has also threatened attacks against Uganda and Burundi, the two nations contributing to the African Union invasion force, in retaliation for the shelling of an insurgent controlled civilian marketplace.
But perhaps the comments most carefully scrutinized came from al-Shabaab’s Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansur, who in his Friday sermon in Baidoa threatened to launch attacks against Israel in retaliation for the violence at al-Aqsa.
The group has also reportedly created a new armed wing dedicated specifically to attacking Israel, a sign that the war in likely to spill not just outside of Somalia’s borders, but outside of the continent.