2021 Dar es Salaam shooting

On 25 August 2021, a gunman opened fire at two locations in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.^[1] He first killed two police officers at an intersection and stole their rifles. He walked several hundred metres to the French embassy, where he shot and killed another officer and a security guard.^[1] The gunman also injured six other people before being shot dead by police.^[1] The attack occurred during the day on Ali Hassan Mwinyi Road, one of Dar es Salaam's main avenues in the diplomatic quarter.^[2][3][4][5]

On 2 September 2021, authorities confirmed that the attacker, identified as Hamza Mohamed, was motivated by Islamic extremism.^[6] Before the shooting, he had visited social media pages related to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.^[7] Simon Sirro, the chief police inspector leading the investigation, said the attack was likelly motivated by the Tanzanian government's effort to combat Islamic terrorists in Mozambique.^[8] Such attacks were relatively rare in Tanzania, although there have been Islamist attacks in the past, including the killings of police officers and civil servants in the eastern district of Kibiti in 2016 and 2017.

In Dar es Salaam, on the eve of the attack, dozens of Tanzanian police officers, politicians and citizens gathered to pay tribute to the victims.^[2]