Explosion at Colombia bullring injures 30

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) – Somalia's new president visited victims wounded by the Mogadishu car bomb that on Sunday killed 34. President Mohamed Abdulahi Mohamed offered a $100,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those who planned the blast.

The explosion hit a busy marketplace in the western part of the capital, said police Capt. Mohamed Hussein.

"It was a horrific and barbaric attack only aimed at killings civilians," he said from the scene of the blast.

Sabriye Abdullahi, an ambulance driver told The Associated Press that some of the injured victims died on their way to the hospitals.

"Many of them suffered extensive third degree burns and others were burned beyond recognition," he said.

The blast from a car parked near

BOGOTA (AFP) – An explosion in Bogota early Sunday injured about 30 people, most of them police guarding a bullring that had been targeted by protests when it reopened last month, officials said.

Mayor Enrique Penalosa had said on Twitter that a police officer was killed in the blast, but officials later said that report was a mistake and there were no deaths.

The city hall said 31 people were injured, two of them seriously.

Police cordoned off the area at the center of the blast, where fragments of rubble lay as police explosives experts inspected the site.

The explosion struck near the Plaza a restaurant went off when shoppers and traders were gathered inside the market, said district commissioner Ahmed Abdulle.

Mohamed Haji, a butcher who suffered shrapnel wounds, pointed to a clothes shop devastated by the blast. "Someone had parked the car here and left before it was detonated," he said. Pieces of wood and metal sheets on the ground were all that remained of the shop.

Women sobbed and screamed outside the market as rescue workers moved bloodied bodies and wounded victims into ambulances.

"It's a painful carnage." said Ali Mire, a government soldier who was helping a friend with shrapnel wounds

The powerful explosion was the first major attack since Somalia's new president Santamaria bullring in the Macarena district.

The bullring was beset by protesters when bullfights resumed there on January 22 after a four-year hiatus.

Those injured on Sunday were mainly police guarding the venue, as they have during every bullfight Sunday since the protests, local media reported.

Penalosa, who overflew the scene in a helicopter, said the area had been secured.

"Anyone who wants to go to the bullfight can do so in safety," he tweeted.

"The terrorists are not going to intimidate us and we are going to do what is necessary to capture them," he added. was elected on Feb.8. Although no group has yet claimed responsibility, it bears the hallmarks of Somalia's Islamic extremists rebels, al-Shabab. In addition to visiting the wounded in hospital, President Mohamed condemned the blast in a tweet, saying that it shows the "cruelty" of al-Shabab.

A few hours before the blast, alShabab denounced the new president as an "apostate" and vowed to continue fighting against his government.

Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano, in a statement condemning the attack, said that "Italy remains solidly on Somalia's side in the process of the country's stabilization." He added that "together we will act so that the terrorists don't succeed in stopping the path of peace and reconciliation that is underway."

The authorities have not said who was behind the explosion or whether anti-bullfight activists were suspected.

Closed in 2012 by the city's former leftist mayor Gustavo Petro, the bullring was ordered to reopen by Colombia's Constitutional Court.

Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos condemned the attack, in a message on Twitter.

"Investigations must go ahead to capture those responsible," he wrote, expressing his "support for all the wounded police."

The mayor's office said it would give more details of the attack later after an emergency security meeting on Sunday afternoon.