Abrar Hussain: A suicide bomber reportedly attacked a government office in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, causing a nearby school to collapse, authorities have said.
BBC Somali reported that a car bomb in Howlwadag district killed three soldiers and injured 14 people, including six children, citing local officials. The blast also damaged nearby houses and blew the roof off a mosque.
The militant group al-Shabab, which has waged an insurgency for more than 10 years, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The three soldiers had died as they stopped the explosives-laden car from entering a government compound, local official Salah Hassan Omar said.
Raqiya Mahamed Ali, who was in the compound at the time, told Reuters: “We were in the middle of our usual work when the explosion happened.”
“I hid under the table. There was a lot of gunfire at our gate… when I came out, I saw many people injured on the ground and others dead.”
Somalia has faced instability and violence since 1991, when the military government was overthrown. The ousting of Mohamed Siad Barre led to a decades-long civil war between rival warlords, and two northern regions – Somaliland and Puntland – effectively broke away from Somalia. Much of the country has effectively been a war zone ever since.
A UN-backed unity government was formed in 2012. Al-Shabab has since been driven out of many urban areas but still controls territory in rural regions and carries out gun attacks and bombings on military and civilian targets.
-Source: BBC