Shabab was targeting Sofia Abdinoor since she won seat as first female MP

Ijara MP Sophia Abdinoor standing akimbo at the scene of the attack.

GARISSA—Somalia based militant group Al Shabab were planning to hit Ijara since August elections when the electorates voted for Sofia Abdinor instead of her male competitors.

The militrants made several text messages and social media posting on the threat on their social media accounts, namely on Facebook  and WhatsApp .

Reports has it that the intelligence community were aware of an impending attack, although it was not specific and “un-actionable”

At one point in the morning of the attack when informationn trickling in from Ijara and about the attack was little due to the network outage, online propaganda appeared to suggest that Sofia was a victim in the attack.

The propaganda was later proved wrong.

Sofia Abdinoor is the first female MP to have won a competitive parliamentary election against men.

On Saturday, Shabaab have set on fire two police camps in Ijara, in the latest attack.

The attackers also destroyed the main communication equipment used in the town before speeding off with a police land cruiser which is yet to be recovered.

A senior police officer briefed on the matter has told Kulan Post that no casualty was reported in the attack that occurred at 2 am.

The attackers also broke into shops in the town and stole several items.

Ijara MP Sophia Abdinoor visited the scene of the attack the following morning where she damage caused by the attack.

She said she would lobby for more securty personell in the area, saying the number was too low.

“I will ask for more security deployment to persue those people who caused havoc in Ijara so that we don’t have such problem happening again,” she said at the front door of the charred Ijara Police Station.

The attackers destroyed a Safaricom mast in the region, cutting off communication before looting a shop in the town.