NEW ARMY CHIEF SURVIVES DEADLY CAR BOMB ATTACK

MOGADISHU Somalia’s new military chief survived a suicide car bomb attack on Sunday that killed 13 people, police say.

Gen. Mohamed Ahmed Jimale had just been sworn into office and was travelling in a convoy with senior military officials when the bomb exploded near Somalia’s defence ministry compound in Mogadishu, police say.

Five soldiers and at least eight civilians travelling in a passing minibus were killed, said Capt. Mohamed Hussein, a senior Somali police officer.

Somalia’s Islamic extremist rebels, al-Shabab, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The bomb gave an explosive start to Jimale’s term as the chief of the Somali National Army.

He was appointed on Thursday by President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who declared Somalia a war zone. The president, who was elected in February, replaced his military and intelligence chiefs and instructed the army to prepare a new offensive against al-Shabab extremists. Mohamed also replaced the country’s police chief and Mogadishu’s mayor.

The shakeup is an attempt to improve the worsening security situation as al-Shabab steps up deadly bombings in the capital.

The Somali-American president gave al-Shabab members a 60-day amnesty period to surrender.