Officers stand by the remains of a wrecked car at the scene of car bomb explosion along the “Kilometre 4” road junction, south of Mogadishu
MOGADISHU: A suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden car into a convoy carrying Qatari officials through the centre of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu yesterday, killing at least eight Somalis,
officials said.
The Emir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani received a phone call from Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud, who assured him about the safety of the Qatari delegation, while expressing regret for the car bomb blast, QNA said.
The Emir offered condolences to Sheikh Mahmoud over the victims of the bombing.
The visiting delegation of Qataris, who were travelling in the Somali interior minister’s bullet-proof vehicle, were “safe”, a security officer told Reuters, without going into further detail. The minister was not in the car at the time.
The Islamist rebel group Al Shabaab said it was behind the attack and threatened further strikes against Somalia’s government, which it called a “puppet” of Western powers.
“More explosions are on the way,” Al Shabaab’s military spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab told Reuters by telephone.
The Al Qaeda-linked rebels, who want to impose their version of Islamic law or Shariah on the country, have kept up a campaign of guerrilla-style attacks since African peacekeepers pushed them out of bases in the city and other major towns.
Western powers, long worried Somalia is a launch pad for militant Islam in east Africa and beyond, fear it could slide back into chaos if security forces cannot cement security gains.
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