Mogadishu bombings kill at least 15
At least 15 people have been killed in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, after two explosions ripped through a busy car park, according to multiple news sources.
The blasts hit The Village, a popular restaurant near the parliament building in Mogadishu around lunchtime. The restaurant is popular with government workers and journalists and has been targeted before, the BBC reports.
At least another 20 people were wounded in the bomb attacks, Captain Ali Hussein, a senior police official, said on Saturday.
Local reports suggest a car bomb was detonated outside the restaurant, and that a suicide bomber then blew himself up among the crowd that gathered at the scene.
Mohamed Yusuf, a spokesman for the Mogadishu authorities, said: “First a car bomb exploded at the entrance of the restaurant, and when people converged inside a suicide bomber blew up himself.”
The Guardian reports that no one has claimed responsibility for the blasts but suspicion will likely fall on the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida affiliate which has carried out a campaign of suicide bombings since African Union forces forced it to withdraw from the city in 2011.