{"id":31541,"date":"2017-01-02T22:33:02","date_gmt":"2017-01-02T22:33:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/massive-blast-hits-near-mogadishu-airport\/"},"modified":"2017-01-02T22:32:29","modified_gmt":"2017-01-02T22:32:29","slug":"massive-blast-hits-near-mogadishu-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/massive-blast-hits-near-mogadishu-airport\/","title":{"rendered":"Massive blast hits near Mogadishu airport"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Police say three people killed after suicide bomber rammed car into a checkpoint close to city&#8217;s international airport.}<\/p>\n<p>Suicide bombers attacked the main peacekeeping base in Somalia&#8217;s capital, killing at least three Somali security officers.<\/p>\n<p>Captain Mohamed Hussein told The Associated Press news agency on Monday one blast took place as security forces were searching cars at a checkpoint a few hundred metres from the main base of the African Union peacekeeping force, AMISOM.<\/p>\n<p>Another vehicle then drove through towards the base&#8217;s main gates but came under fire from peacekeepers, police officer Mohamed Ahmed told Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It exploded about 200 metres from the gate. Civilian buildings were damaged,&#8221; AMISOM said on its Twitter feed.<\/p>\n<p>The powerful blasts damaged the front of the nearby Hotel Peace, though there were no immediate reports of casualties there. The burned-out shell of one of the wrecked vehicles lay outside.<\/p>\n<p>Al-Shabab spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab said the fighters had intended to attack the hotel, as African leaders seeking a solution to Somalia&#8217;s decades-long turmoil had met there last year.<\/p>\n<p>Abdur Razak Tuurare, a Mogadishu-based journalist, said the blast had destroyed most of the hotel. <\/p>\n<p>Witnesses said a second explosion and heavy gunfire could be heard at the checkpoint after the attack.<\/p>\n<p>Somalia&#8217;s capital has seen frequent bomb attacks at hotels and military checkpoints with al-Shabab &#8211; which wants to topple the Western-backed government &#8211; often claiming responsibility.<\/p>\n<p>Despite being ousted from most of its key strongholds across large parts of south and central Somalia, the al-Qaeda-linked group continues to wage deadly attacks across the country.<\/p>\n<p>The attacks have threatened this Horn of Africa nation&#8217;s attempts to rebuild from two decades of conflict.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-17398 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/78b14abb24cd4894b89815fcf9bdb3fc_18.jpg\" alt=\"Mogadishu has seen frequent bomb attacks at hotels and military checkpoints\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Police say three people killed after suicide bomber rammed car into a checkpoint close to city&#8217;s international airport.} Suicide bombers attacked the main peacekeeping base in Somalia&#8217;s capital, killing at least three Somali security officers. Captain Mohamed Hussein told The Associated Press news agency on Monday one blast took place as security forces were searching [&hellip;]<\/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-31541","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\/31541","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=31541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31541\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31541"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=31541"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=31541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}