SHAFAQNA – A government official was killed by a bomb planted in his car in Somalia’s capital on Monday and a second suicide bomb attack struck a military training camp, officials said.
No one claimed responsibility for the car bomb, but terrorist militant group al Shabaab said it was behind the suicide bombing at the camp in the outskirts of the capital.
“The car bomb killed a junior government worker,” the spokesman for Mogadishu’s mayor, Abdifatah Omar Halane, said.
An al Shabaab car bomb outside Mogadishu’s army base killed at least 15 people on Sunday in a sign the group has stepped up its attacks to challenge the new government.
On Monday, an attacker wearing an army uniform walked into the military training camp and shot at soldiers before detonating his explosive vest.
“An armed suicide bomber with an explosive jacket entered the camp and blew up himself after firing at the soldiers,” police officer Nur Hussein said.
There was no official word on casualties but al Shabaab said two dozen soldiers and their instructors were killed in the attack. The group usually gives a high death toll for its attacks which is usually not easily verifiable.