Two bombs kill 11 in Mogadishu

Somali soldiers stand over the wreckage of a car bomb in Mogadishu, Somalia. A Somali police officer says a suicide car bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle near a restaurant in the Somali capital. Picture: Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP

Somali soldiers stand over the wreckage of a car bomb in Mogadishu, Somalia. A Somali police officer says a suicide car bomber detonated an explosives-laden vehicle near a restaurant in the Somali capital. Picture: Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP

Published Dec 15, 2016

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Mogadishu - Two attacks on Thursday killed at least 11 people

in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, police and witnesses said.

At least five people were killed when a car suicide bomber detonated

his explosives near the presidential palace.

The bomber was reportedly chasing a convoy carrying two police

officers, but missed the target. A civilian vehicle was caught in the

explosion instead.

The dead included three members of the security forces, who were

patrolling in the area, and the bomber, police and witnesses said.

Six people were reported to have been injured. Witness Abdisalan

Garad said some of them were inside a nearby restaurant hit by the

blast. Parts of the building collapsed.

Another bomb meanwhile went off at another restaurant near a

checkpoint manned by security forces on the outskirts of the capital,

police officer Bashir Gedi told reporters.

Four civilians and two soldiers who were inside the restaurant were

killed, and seven other people wounded. Police said the bomb appeared

to have been set off by remote control.

Meanwhile, in Bosaso in the north, gunmen shot and wounded a deputy

police commissioner, local media reported.

Cornell Jama Sahardiid was shot several times in the chest in the

morning. The attackers escaped on foot.

The radical Islamist group al-Shabaab claimed the three attacks on

pro-insurgent radio Andalus, saying it wanted to disrupt the

presidential elections scheduled for December 28.

ANA-dpa

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