MOGADISHU: A Somali police officer says at least nine people died in a powerful car bomb explosion in Somalia’s capital Monday.
“The blast occurred close to Mogadishu mall and it has caused death and destruction. Nine civilians were confirmed dead and several others are wounded,” police officer Ahmed Moalin Ali said.
“The terrorists parked a vehicle loaded with explosives in the vicinity of the mall to kill the innocent civilians.”
He said some of the victims died in a building that collapsed as a result of the blast in the Hamarweyne market.
“I saw the dead bodies of four people recovered from the debris of a collapsed building and three others were strewn dead outside after the blast had blown them,” said shopper Munira Abdukadir.
“I was not far away from the blast location, but I was lucky to have survived, several people were wounded and some were screaming before the ambulances arrived,” said another witness, Abdulahi Mohamed.
Somalia has not had an effective central government since the 1991 overthrow of president Siad Barre’s military regime which ushered in decades of chaos — including an insurrection by Al-Shabab since 2006.
The group once held sway over large swathes of countryside and the capital, however they were chased out of Mogadishu by the 22,000-strong African Union peace-enforcement mission, AMISOM in 2011, and have since abandoned many strongholds.
They nevertheless control vast rural areas and remain a key threat to peace in Somalia and the region, with the capacity to stage significant attacks.
In October 2017, a truck bombing in a busy neighborhood of Mogadishu killed over 500 people in the deadliest attack in Somalia to date.
On January 15, Shabab gunmen — and the first-ever suicide bomber in Kenya — attacked the Dusit hotel and office complex in Nairobi, leaving 21 people dead and prompting police and the US embassy to urge caution in public spaces.
