Car bomb attack leaves nine dead in Mogadishu
At least nine people have been killed and dozens of others injured when a bomb went off outside a popular restaurant in the center of the Somali capital, Mogadishu.
Local security officials and witnesses said a car loaded with explosives detonated at lunchtime on Tuesday outside the restaurant in Mogadishu's southern Hamarwayne district.
"We are still in a chaotic situation where ambulances are trying to collect the victims," police official Mohamed Hassan said.
Authorities are trying to determine whether the powerful blast, which could be heard in many parts of the capital, was set off by a bomber or by remote control.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but al-Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabab militants regularly carry out such attacks.
The development comes a day after seven UN workers were killed in a car bomb attack in Somalia’s northeastern semi-autonomous region of Puntland.
Two Kenyans, one Ugandan, one Afghan and three Somalis died in the explosion in Garowe town, located 788 kilometers (490 miles) north of Mogadishu, while one American, one Sierra Leonean, one Ugandan, one Kenyan and four Somalis were wounded.
On Sunday, three Burundian soldiers serving with the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) were killed as al-Shabab terrorists attacked their convoy in the town of Leego in Lower Shabelle region. Several other soldiers were also wounded.
Al-Shabab militants had assassinated Aden Haji Hussein, a legislator from Puntland region, a day earlier after he took his wife to hospital in the Somali capital.
Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke faces an uphill battle to rein in corruption, defeat the al-Shabab extremists and rebuild the war-ravaged Somalia, which has been the scene of deadly clashes between government forces and al-Shabab since 2006.
The militants have been pushed out of Mogadishu and other major cities in the country by government forces and the AMISOM, which is largely made up of troops from Ethiopia, Uganda, Burundi, Djibouti, Sierra Leone, and Kenya.
MP/KA/SS
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