MOGADISHU, March 8 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Four people were killed and nine
wounded when a car bomb exploded near a restaurant in central Mogadishu on Thursday, police said, as the Al-Shabaab jihadist group claimed responsibility.
The blast “was caused by a car loaded with explosives, we perceive that it
was parked near a restaurant along the road,” Somali police official Ibrahim Mohamed said.
The restaurant was near a security checkpoint in the Somali capital, not
far from the presidential palace. The road in which the blast occurred houses eateries and tea shops.
Al-Shabaab said it had planted the bomb, claiming in a statement that its
“fighters targeted one of the checkpoints of the palace apostates.”
The group, linked to Al-Qaeda, is fighting an armed insurrection in Somalia against what it sees as heretic and foreign influence.
Earlier this month, at least 20 people died in an attack in Mogadishu
which saw Al-Shabaab fighters battling security forces for nearly 24 hours.
The Shabaab were chased out of Mogadishu in 2011 by the 22,000-strong
African Union mission AMISOM, and have had to abandon most of their
strongholds.
But they still control vast rural areas and remain the key threat to peace
in Somalia.
President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, elected in February 2017, has
declared a state of war against the group. — NNN-AGENCIES