More than a dozen killed in two car bomb attacks in Somalia
A Somali woman walks past the scene of a suicide car bomb attack near Juba hotel in capital Mogadishu Saturday. (Feisal Omar/Reuters)
MOGADISHU, Somalia — At least 21 people were killed in two separate car-bomb attacks in Somalia on Saturday, one in Mogadishu and another at a military training base in the southern port city of Kismayo, police and military officials said.
Sixteen soldiers were reportedly killed when militants drove an explosives-laden vehicle into a military training site in Kismayo. The attack was launched as the soldiers were lining up for training, military officials said. Col. Ahmed Ato told Reuters that at least 21 others were wounded in the blast.
Later Saturday, a parked car exploded near a bus station in northern Mogadishu. “So far we know five civilians died in this evening’s blast and seven others were injured,” Mohamed Yusuf, spokesman for the Interior Security Ministry, told reporters at the scene.
Both attacks bore the hallmarks of al-Shabab.
Sheik Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabab spokesman for military operations, said his group was behind the car bomb in Kismayo.
The Islamist militant group has lost control of most of its territory to African Union troops in recent years but has stepped up attacks in Mogadishu and elsewhere.
