{"id":31125,"date":"2016-12-16T03:30:18","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T03:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/bomb-kills-six-somalis-in-capital-mogadishu\/"},"modified":"2016-12-16T03:30:13","modified_gmt":"2016-12-16T03:30:13","slug":"bomb-kills-six-somalis-in-capital-mogadishu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/bomb-kills-six-somalis-in-capital-mogadishu\/","title":{"rendered":"Bomb kills six Somalis in capital Mogadishu"},"content":{"rendered":"

{Attack targeting security forces kills at least five soldiers and wounds a dozen others with al-Shabab group suspected.}<\/p>\n

A bomb blast killed six people, mostly soldiers, and wounded a dozen other people in the Somali capital, hours after a car bomb exploded at a checkpoint killing the attacker.<\/p>\n

“Six people, most of them soldiers, were killed [by the bomb] which was planted under a tree close to a security checkpoint. Several others are also wounded,” said Mogadishu administration spokesman Abdifatah Omar Halane.<\/p>\n

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks on Thursday but al-Shabab fighters have been trying to disrupt Somalia’s protracted parliamentary elections – part of efforts to rebuild the fractured nation after decades of war. The three-month vote is due to end on December 29.<\/p>\n

“We heard a huge blast and soon we saw people lying under the tree, some dead, others yelling for help,” shopkeeper Nur Abdullahi said. “Among the injured ones were two young children.”<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, a car bomb blew up at a checkpoint near the national theatre in Mogadishu, killing the bomber, police said. <\/p>\n

Witnesses said the explosion was followed by gunfire. <\/p>\n

“The bomber blew up the car after police ordered him to stop at gunpoint. We are investigating,” Abdikadir Hussein, a police officer, told Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n

Somali police commander Mohamed Dahir said the driver died and several other people were wounded. <\/p>\n

Two employees of a local radio station inside the building were among the injured, AFP news agency reported. <\/p>\n

“The car rolled over after striking the building but luckily [the explosives] did not go off for a few minutes. People managed to run away and casualties were very minimal,” said Abdirahman Ali, who witnessed the blast.<\/p>\n

The national theatre is about 500 metres away from the presidential palace.<\/p>\n

On Sunday 20 people were killed in a suicide truck bombing claimed by al-Shabab.<\/p>\n

Al-Shabab, which is affiliated with al-Qaeda, aims to drive out African Union peacekeepers, topple Somalia’s Western-backed government, and impose its strict version of Islam on the Horn of Africa state.<\/p>\n

The group once held large swaths of Somalia, including Mogadishu, before being forced out of the capital in 2011 and losing further ground, though they continue to pose a formidable threat with bombings in Somalia and neighbouring Kenya.<\/p>\n

\"Somali<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{Attack targeting security forces kills at least five soldiers and wounds a dozen others with al-Shabab group suspected.} A bomb blast killed six people, mostly soldiers, and wounded a dozen other people in the Somali capital, hours after a car bomb exploded at a checkpoint killing the attacker. “Six people, most of them soldiers, were […]<\/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-31125","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\/31125","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=31125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31125\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31125"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31125"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}