At least seven people were killed when a car bomb exploded near a cafe in an area close to the national security headquarters in Somalia’s capital, said police and a Reuters witness.
“A suicide car bomb targeted a national security car passing along these tea shops. We have carried seven dead civilians so far,” Abdullahi Hassan, the district commissioner of Mogadishu’s Abdiasis district, told Reuters at the scene.
The cafe, near the city’s Lido beach, was reportedly popular with security officials, the AFP news agency reported.
A Reuters witness counted eight dead people.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the blast comes just a week after Al-Qaeda linked fighters carried out a majo attack against the heavily fortified presidential palace, killing officials and guards in a fierce gun battle.
The attack comes amid an apparent upsurge of Al-Shabab bombings in and around Mogadishu, with nighttime mortar rounds fired into the vast, heavily guarded airport complex, home to the 22,000-strong African Union force fighting Al-Shabab as well as foreign diplomats and aid workers.
Source: Aljazeera