Car bomb kills 7 at police station in Somali capital
MOGADISHU: A car bomb targeting a police station killed at least seven people in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu on Thursday, police said, and Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab said it was behind the attack, the second this week.
A witness saw bodies lying on the ground at the Waberi police station, near Makkah Al-Mukarrama road, the busiest street in Mogadishu. Cars were ruined and the building damaged.
“We carried seven dead people and 12 others injured from the scene,” Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of the Amin ambulance service, told Reuters.
Maj. Mohamed Hussein, a police officer, had earlier given a toll of four dead.
The blast came despite thousands of security personnel, including police, intelligence and military, being assigned to secure Mogadishu earlier this month.
“As you can see, the terrorists attacked the station which is now destroyed,” Ahmed Mohamed, spokesman for the Mogadishu security forces, told reporters at the scene.
Al-Shabab, which wants to force out African Union peacekeepers, oust the Western-backed government and impose its strict interpretation of Islam on Somalia, claimed responsibility for the attack. It also gave a higher number for those killed. Its numbers often differ from those given by government officials.
Al-Shabab spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab said a suicide bomber rammed his car into the police station. “Eleven enemies in the station died and more were injured,” he said.
The attack comes just two days after Al-Shabaab drove an explosives-laden minibus into local government offices in Mogadishu, killing 10 and wounding nine.
Last Thursday, at least 18 people were killed when six Al-Shabaab militants launched a strike on two neighboring restaurants in Mogadishu.
The terror group has also launched attacks in Kenya and Uganda, both contributors to a 22,000-strong African Union force in the country.
Although pushed out of the capital in 2011, the group still controls parts of the countryside and launches regular suicide bombings and raids in the capital against civilian, government and military targets.