Four soldiers have been killed in a roadside bomb attack that targeted a car transporting former lawmakers in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu.
Somalia police said the attack came on Saturday when an improvised explosive device (IED) exploded on a vehicle carrying two former lawmakers and a prominent traditional elder in Kaaraan district of central Mogadishu.
Police spokesman Sadiq Adan said those killed were “bodyguards of the former lawmakers.”
The former lawmakers were “slightly injured," he said.
District Commissioner Abshir Mohamed Mohamud said the al-Shabab militants were behind the attack.
“The enemy, al-Shabab militants, hid the bomb on the roadside," Mohamud said.
The al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab militants have been engaged in a bloody militancy in Somalia since 2006, in an attempt to undermine its central government, which is supported by the United Nations and African Union peacekeeping troops.
Despite being ousted from large parts of the south and central Somalia, al-Shabab continues deadly attacks on military and civilian targets, including at hotels, intersections, and checkpoints.
The terrorists have fought successive Somali governments as well as neighboring governments in Uganda and Kenya, the latter of which sent troops to Somalia in 2011 to fight the Takfiri group as part of the African Union forces.