Car bomb attack in Somali capital kills at least 30

Two car bombs exploded Saturday at a busy intersection in Somalia’s capital near government offices, leaving “scores of civilian casualties” including children, national police said. One hospital worker counted at least 30 bodies.

The attack in Mogadishu occurred on a day when the president, prime minister and other senior officials were meeting to discuss combating violent extremism, especially by the al Qaeda-affiliated al-Shabab group that often targets the capital. It also came five years after another massive blast in the same location killed more than 500 people.

A volunteer at the Medina hospital, Hassan Osman, said “out of the total of at least 30 dead people brought to the hospital, the majority of them are women.” At the hospital, frantic relatives peeked under plastic sheeting and into body bags, looking for loved ones.

The Aamin ambulance service said they had collected at least 35 wounded. One ambulance responding to the first attack was destroyed by the second blast, director Abdulkadir Adan tweeted.

“I was 100 meters away when the second blast occurred,” witness Abdirazak Hassan said. “I couldn’t count the bodies on the ground due to the (number of ) fatalities.” He said the first blast hit the perimeter wall of the education ministry, where street vendors and money changers were located.

An Associated Press journalist at the scene said the second blast occurred in front of a busy restaurant during lunchtime. He saw “many” bodies and said they appeared to be civilians traveling on public transportation.

Somalia’s government has been engaged in a high-profile offensive against the extremist group that the United States has described as one of al Qaeda’s deadliest organizations. President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has described it as “total war” against the extremists, who control large parts of central and southern Somalia and have been the target of scores of U.S. air strikes in recent years.

On Saturday, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre said the attack would not dampen the public uprising against al-Shabab and again expressed the government’s determination to wipe out the extremist group.

Farah Abdi Warsameh/Associated Press Rescuers remove a victim from the scene where two car bombs detonated in Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu. The attackers targeted a busy intersection located near government offices.