Mogadishu, SOMALIA
At least four people were killed and 10
others were injured after a car bomb exploded on Wednesday morning at a busy
junction near buildings which house government offices in the Somali capital,
Mogadishu, police said.
The
explosion occurred as vehicles lined up for a search at a security checkpoint.
Ambulances rushed to the scene of the explosion to take the injured to the
hospital.
“Explosives
were packed in a vehicle which the security forces think was trying to pass
through the checkpoint but because he could not do that, the suicide bomber
detonated it,” a police officer named Adan Abdullahi, who spoke to
AFP, said.
Eyewitnesses
who spoke to AFP reported seeing several bodies, a number of vehicles on fire
and smoke and chaos along the road.
Horn
Connect, a local media outlet, reported that 15 people were injured in the
explosion which happened during a busy time of the morning.
“The
explosion occurred during the rush hours. The government officials frequently
use the road and it is near to the Ministry of Internal Security, the
parliament building and the presidential palace,” Horn Connect’s Mohammed Matan
reported.
The
Al-Qaeda linked group Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s attack.
This is
the second attack claimed by the group to rock Mogadishu in recent days. On
December 28, a bomb blast killed at least 90 people and injured more than 100
others at the Ex-Control checkpoint.
That
bombing was the deadliest the country had experienced in more than two years
after one in Mogadishu which killed close to 600 people in 2017.
Al-Shabaab
has carried out bombings to try to sabotage the central government which has
the support of the United Nations and African Union.
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