7 killed in car bomb targeting police station in Somalia’s Mogadishu
At least seven people have been killed in a car bomb targeting a police station in the Somali capital Mogadishu.
Police officer Major Mohamed Hussein said on Thursday that an attacker had driven an explosive-laden car into the wall of the Waberi district station located near Maka al Mukaram road, the busiest street in Mogadishu.
"We carried seven dead people and 12 others injured from the scene," Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of the Amin ambulance service, told Reuters on Thursday.
Witnesses saw bodies lying on the ground at the scene while cars were destroyed. Authorities reported damage to the police station, saying the attacker had tried to drive into the gate of the facility but detonated the explosives against the wall instead.
Dozens of soldiers were deployed to the scene of the incident.
Al-Shabab, a Takfiri militant group linked to al-Qaeda which has a history of carrying out attacks in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the bombing, the second this week.
On Tuesday, al-Shabab claimed an attack targeting a government building in the Somali capital. At least 15 people were killed in the car bomb, in which the attacker used a milk delivery van to target a district headquarters in Mogadishu.
Al-Shabab opposes the government in Mogadishu, saying it serves Western interests in the region. It has promised to step up attacks in response to an expanded government offensive.
The group has also carried out attacks in neighboring Kenya to compensate for the country’s heavy military involvement in a regional drive against militants in Somalia.
Recent estimates suggest al-Shabab has outpaced other militant groups in Africa by killing more than 4,200 people in 2016.
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