{"id":404101,"date":"2018-02-24T12:38:05","date_gmt":"2018-02-24T12:38:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=404101"},"modified":"2018-02-24T12:38:05","modified_gmt":"2018-02-24T12:38:05","slug":"somalia-deadly-double-car-bombing-near-presidential-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=404101","title":{"rendered":"Somalia: Deadly double car bombing near presidential palace"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Two car-bomb attacks have killed at least 38 people in the Somali capital Mogadishu, officials say.<\/p>\n<p>The first took place outside the presidential palace late on Friday. The second hit a nearby hotel. Dozens of people were wounded.<\/p>\n<p>The Islamist militant group al-Shabab, which has been trying to oust Somalia&#8217;s government, says it was behind both.<\/p>\n<p>A gun battle followed the attack near the presidential palace in which five militants were killed, officials say.<\/p>\n<p>Friday&#8217;s bombings are the latest in a series of attacks attributed to al-Shabab, which once controlled Mogadishu before being forced out by African Union troops in 2011.<\/p>\n<p>Last October, more than 500 people were killed by a truck bomb in the city. Officials blamed al-Shabab but the group never said it was behind that attack.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\">\n<p><figure style=\"width: 976px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/AFD8\/production\/_100161054_mediaitem100161053.jpg\" alt=\"A wounded civilian receives medical treatment at the Madina Hospital after he was injured during an explosion near the presidential palace in Mogadishu, Somalia, 23 February 2018\" width=\"976\" height=\"549\" data-highest-encountered-width=\"624\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Injured civilians were taken to hospital<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n<p>The latest incident began when a vehicle failed to stop at a checkpoint outside the presidential palace before being blown up, state media say. This was followed by an exchange of fire between militants and security forces.<\/p>\n<p>Then a parked car exploded near the hotel. However, al-Shabab said it had targeted security forces.<\/p>\n<p>The group said five of its fighters, including the two drivers, had been &#8220;martyred&#8221; and 35 soldiers were killed in the attacks.<\/p>\n<p>A police spokesman told Reuters news agency: &#8220;There were many military soldiers who guarded the street adjacent to the palace.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two car-bomb attacks have killed at least 38 people in the Somali capital Mogadishu, officials say. The first took place outside the presidential palace late on Friday. The second hit a nearby hotel. Dozens of people were wounded. The Islamist militant group al-Shabab, which has been trying to oust Somalia&#8217;s government, says it was behind [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":404102,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[3833,1018],"class_list":["post-404101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-al-shabab","tag-somalia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=404101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/404102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=404101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=404101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=404101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}