Deadly car bomb blast rocks Somali capital Mogadishu

A car bomb has exploded on a road leading to the airport in the Somali capital Mogadishu, killing at least eight people.

"A car bomb targeted a convoy, including bullet proof cars using Avisione street, we do not who owns the convoy. We carried eight dead people from the scene," Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of Aamin Ambulance service said on Wednesday.

Medical sources confirmed that they have received at least five wounded civilians.

The attack was claimed by the Al-Shabab group, which said in a brief statement that it was targeting "foreign officers".

The explosion took place just days after Somali leaders had agreed on a new timetable for long-delayed elections in the troubled country.

'The blast was so huge'

Witnesses said a multi-vehicle private security convoy escorting foreigners was passing by the area when the explosion hit.

"I saw some of the passengers injured and being carried after the blast," said one witness Osman Hassan.

Another witness, Hassan Nur, said: "The blast was so huge that it has destroyed most of the buildings nearby the road and vehicles passing by the area.

"I saw several dead and wounded people strewn in the road."

The Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab group that controls parts of Somalia often carries out bombings at high-profile locations in the capital.

It was behind a 2017 truck bomb attack in Mogadishu that took some 600 lives, the worst attack in the Horn of Africa country’s history.

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