6 killed by bomb blasts in Somalia after leader addresses UN

By Our Correspondent,  NAIROBI  Kenya

Bomb blasts in Mogadishu and a town in the country's Middle Shabelle region killed at least six people and injured 10 others Saturday, police said and witnesses confirmed to our reporter.

“An explosives-laden vehicle, which was parked on the road near a restaurant in the busy Hamar Weyne district, went off. I could see the dead bodies of at least three people, two of them women,” Mohamed Haji Nur, a witness, said.

The explosion site is opposite of Somalia’s National Theater, about one kilometer from the president's office.

The target of the attack is still unknown, but the affected Gel Doh restaurant is frequented by government staff and people from the diaspora for serving traditional Somali food.

In a separate incident, a bomb planted in a livestock market in Jowhar city in Somalia's Middle Shabelle region killed one person and injured three other civilians, Jowhar police Commander Bashir Hassan told a news conference.

It was not immediately clear who had carried out the attacks. However, the Islamist militant group al-Shabab is known for orchestrating bombings and gun attacks in Mogadishu and elsewhere in the Horn of Africa country.

Somalian Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre publicly accused Ethiopia before the U.N. General Assembly on Friday of actions that he says "flagrantly violate" Somalia's territorial integrity.

This accusation comes as tensions continue to escalate between the two neighboring countries since January, when Ethiopia struck a controversial maritime deal with the breakaway region of Somaliland.

This region, at the northern tip of the country, declared independence in 1991 but lacks international recognition.

Under the deal, Somaliland would lease 20 kilometers of shoreline to Ethiopia in return for recognition, a move that raised alarms in Mogadishu.