By Martin Rivers
A picture taken on February 3rd, 2016 shows the Daallo Airlines A321 after it made an emergency landing in Mogadishu following a on-board explosion, apparently caused by a suicide bomber. (Photo by MOHAMED ABDIWAHAB/AFP/Getty Images)
The bomb that exploded on a Somali passenger jet last week was destined for Turkish Airlines (THY), according to Mohammed Ibrahim Yassin, chief executive of Daallo Airlines, raising questions about the viability of THY’s high-risk Mogadishu route.
No organization has yet claimed responsibility for the failed attack, which killed the apparent suicide bomber and left a gaping hole in the fuselage of an Airbus A321 operated by Daallo’s wet-lease partner Hermes Airlines. Investigators believe one or more employees at Mogadishu Aden Adde International Airport helped the bomber to evade security screening.
But Yassin said that Daallo, which operates a regional network from Somalia and Djibouti, was unlikely to have been the intended target.
“That particular passenger [who detonated the device] boarded the aircraft on a Turkish Airlines boarding pass, and was on the list for the Turkish Airlines manifest,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview. The chief executive added that Daallo had agreed to carry 70 stranded customers for the Turkish flag-carrier after it canceled its own Mogadishu-Djibouti service on the day of the bombing.
The Turkish flag-carrier launched flights from Istanbul to Mogadishu in 2012, becoming the only major international carrier to serve the war-torn capital. It later added a stop in Djibouti before lifting frequencies to daily.
In recent weeks the Djibouti-Mogadishu leg of its outbound service has been hit by repeated cancellations, with local media linking the suspensions to a spate of attacks on Mogadishu Airport. Car bombs and seaborne attacks by Al Shabaab, the militant Islamist group based in Somalia, struck near the airport at least three times in December and January.
Asked about the suspensions on the sidelines of an industry conference in late January, Temel Kotil, THY chief executive, told me that the flag-carrier utilizes intelligence reports when assessing the safety of the route.
“Somalia is a little bit of a rough place. We are there like a civil servant. We are not a part of the conflict,” he said. “If there is something [to raise concerns about safety] maybe we need to cancel one flight.
“Of course we monitor. We get the information. We [do] not risk anybody. But we are brave enough, if there is no risk, [to] link them [to Istanbul].”
Source: Forbes
