{Civilians die in bombing claimed by armed group of traffic junction and restaurant in city 245km northwest of Mogadishu.}<\/p>\n
Somalia’s al-Shabab says it has bombed a busy traffic junction and a nearby restaurant in the city of Baidoa, killing at least 17 people.<\/p>\n
The attacks on Sunday were part of the armed group’s campaign of violence in its bid to topple Somalia’s UN-backed government.<\/p>\n
“The restaurant and the junction were very busy and the death toll may rise,” Police Major Bilow Nurr told the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n
Baidoa lies about 245km northwest of the capital Mogadishu.<\/p>\n
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\nThe attack follows a car bomb attack in Mogadishu near a park and hotel on Friday that killed 14 people, police said.<\/p>\n
Police Colonel Abdi Osman said Sunday’s death toll was 17, mostly civilians, with 25 others injured.<\/p>\n
A police officer said a suicide car bomb blew up at the junction while a second blast – possibly a bomb that had been planted or a suicide bomber – struck the restaurant.<\/p>\n
“We targeted government officials and forces,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabab’s military operation spokesman, told Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n
He said there was a police station nearby.<\/p>\n
Abdirahman Ahmed, a witness who was inside the hotel at the time, said several people were slightly wounded, including three security guards.<\/p>\n
“But the gunmen who tried to storm the hotel were killed outside, they could not manage to enter,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The blast was so huge and windows broken everywhere but the gunfire was outside. Everyone was safe inside, but terrified.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{Civilians die in bombing claimed by armed group of traffic junction and restaurant in city 245km northwest of Mogadishu.} Somalia’s al-Shabab says it has bombed a busy traffic junction and a nearby restaurant in the city of Baidoa, killing at least 17 people. The attacks on Sunday were part of the armed group’s campaign of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23573"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23573\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23573"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23573"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}