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Yet another terrorist bombing hit the capital of Somalia on April 4
2012. Two of
the country's most prominent leaders in sports were killed,
along with eight others, and a
large number of injured. The tragedy is double because the attack came
as the people were beginning to feel the years of chaos might be ending.
The following is adapted from Reuters.com:
Reflecting the feelings of many of her fellow Somalians,
Safia Omar
said a bombing of Somalia's national theatre had robbed her country of a
brief sense that things were getting better.
The bombing - which targeted the prime minister - killed at least six
people including two of Somalia's top sports officials after a young
female suicide bomber walked into the theatre and blew herself up.
Islamist militant group al Shabaab claimed the attack.
"Our hopes for peace faded with yesterday's blast," Omar, the owner of a
kiosk, told Reuters. She said she doubted there would be any stability
for as long as President Sheikh Sharif Ahmed, a former Islamist
commander, remained at the helm of the lawless nation.
"Whenever we get a sniff of peace, explosions take place, wiping out any
new-found sense of pleasure," she said.
"Al Shabaab are hated and they are weak, but these officials are
sustaining the violence."
The theatre had only reopened its doors for the first time in 20 years
in mid March, an event which it had been hoped marked a new chapter in
Somalia's history. Instead the attack underscored how fragile any
progress is.
I could not find the time of day for the bombing, but shadows in
photos showed it was near noon. The GCP event was set for 12 to 18:00
local time (9 to 15:00 UTC). The result is Chisquare 22014.945
on 21600 df, for p = 0.023 and Z = 1.987.
It is important to keep in mind that we have only a tiny
statistical effect, so that it is always hard to distinguish
signal from noise. This means that every "success" might be
largely driven by chance, and every "null" might include a real
signal overwhelmed by noise. In the long run, a real effect can
be identified only by patiently accumulating replications of
similar analyses.
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