A police school located in the northern Mogadishu district of Abdiasis was bombed on Tuesday during a press conference held by Al Shabab, a Somali Islamist insurgent group linked to Al Qaeda. Eight journalists were wounded, four of whom were admitted to Medina Hospital, according to Omar Faruk Osman, the Secretary General of the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ).

The four injured journalists, who were covering the press conference, have been identified as Ilyas Ahmed Abukar, Abdinasir Idle, Abdirisak Elmi Jama, and Muse Mohamoud Jisow.

Somali Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces are linked to the press conference bombing, Osman said. The TFG is currently backed by the United States, the United Nations and African Union peacekeepers and has tentative control over a small part of Mogadishu in an attempt to prevent Al Shabab from annexing the entire city.

The police school, originally set up to train the TFG police, was taken over by the Islamist insurgent group on Monday. Following the takeover, Al-Shabaab reportedly organized the Tuesday press conference to prove to the Somali government that Al Shabab remains an effective and dominant force in Mogadishu.

“The Somali government was not happy with the message presented at the press conference, and that’s where the hostility came from and why the police school was targeted,” said Osman in a phone interview with IPI.

NUSOJ publicly condemned the attack as a wasteful and cowardly act targeting journalists who are only armed with pens and cameras and notebooks.

In Somalia, journalists operate in an atmosphere that is often dangerous and hostile to freedom of expression. According to the 2009 IPI Death Watch, Somalia was Africa’s deadliest country for journalists, particularly due to the political turbulence and frequent violence against conflicting media outlets in the country.

“We hope for the speedy recovery of our wounded colleagues and urge both the Somali government and Al Shabab to discontinue their violent disagreements that have resulted in the death or injury of not only journalists, but innocent civilians,” said IPI Deputy Director Alison Bethel McKenzie.

More information on IPI’s Death Watch count can be found here.