Twin Explosions Claim Over 20 Lives In Somali Town
KABUL: (MEP) At least 23 people have been killed and some 60 others wounded in twin explosions carried out by Somalia’s Al-Shabaab terror organization, an Al-Qaeda splinter group, in south-central Somalia, police said.
The suicide attacks took place in a busy junction and a nearby restaurant on Sunday in the town of Baidoa, according to reports.
“The restaurant and the junction were very busy and the death toll may rise,” Police Major Bilow Nurr told Reuters from Baidoa, which lies about 245 km northwest of Mogadishu.
Witnesses said that a car bomb exploded outside a restaurant across from the Hotel Baidoa around 5:00 p.m., a time when people gather after work. The restaurant’s outdoor cafe, frequented by government workers and business people, was crowded. The bomber was killed in the explosion.
Hospital employees said that some of the bodies they received were unidentifiable due to horrible charring.
The blasts follows a car bomb attack in Mogadishu near a park and hotel on Friday that killed 14 people, police said. He said three militants from the al Shabaab group were also killed.
Some reports put the casualties’ number from 30 to 40.
The Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab terror group claimed responsibility for the attack, “We targeted government officials and forces,” al Shabaab’s military operation spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab told Reuters, adding there was a police station nearby.
