At least four people have been killed and 10 others injured in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, by a suicide bombing at a tea shop near a military base, state-run SONNA news agency said.
The armed group, al-Shabab, claimed responsibility for the attack on Tuesday.
The attacker walked into a Mogadishu tea shop and detonated an explosive vest, police officer, Abdirahman Adan, who was stationed near the scene told the AFP news agency.
“We have confirmed four dead, and nine others wounded,” he said. “The casualties were taken to hospital.”
One resident, Ahmed Ismail, said he heard the blast but that when he ran towards the scene to find out what had happened, he was blocked by soldiers, the Reuters news agency reported.
The Nacnac base outside which the blast occurred is located near a Turkish military garrison that helps to train Somali troops.
“A mujahid bomber targeted the tea shop in which there were Somali soldiers trained by Turkey,” al-Shabab’s military operations spokesman, Abdiasis Abu Musab, told Reuters, claiming that the number of victims, both dead and injured, were 20.
The attack came just two days after Somalia’s government spokesman was injured in a bombing in Mogadishu also claimed by al-Shabab.
On January 12, several people died in a suicide car bomb blast in a separate attack targeting a busy part of the capital.
The spate of attacks came as Somalia limped through a political crisis caused by long-running disagreements about overdue elections.
Al-Shabab frequently carried out bombings and gun assaults in Mogadishu and elsewhere in Somalia, and has been fighting the weak central government for more than a decade.
The al-Qaeda-linked fighters were driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 after an offensive by an African Union force, but they still control vast swaths of rural Somalia from where they launch regular attacks. -AFP
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