Five people killed in car bombing in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu

A car bombing near a school in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu killed five people and injured more than a dozen others on Thursday, according to a security official, in the latest attack to hit the troubled country.

“There was a car bomb blast… five people were confirmed dead and 15 people were injured,” security official Mohamed Abdillahi told AFP, adding that 11 students were among the injured.

“We don’t know who the attack is aimed at… “However, a private security escort vehicle passed through the area,” he said.

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Abdikadir Abdirahman, the director of Mogadishu’s Aamin ambulance service, posted photos of the rubble-strewn scene on Twitter, calling the bombing “a tragedy.”

There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the explosion, but the jihadist Al-Shabaab group has claimed responsibility for other bombings in Mogadishu, including one that killed a prominent Somali journalist on Saturday.

The director of government-owned Radio Mogadishu, Abdiaziz Mohamud Guled, was a harsh critic of the Al-Qaeda-linked militants.

In a statement, Al-Shabaab, which has waged a violent insurgency against the country’s fragile government since 2007, claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing, saying its fighters had been pursuing the journalist for a long time.

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Al-Shabaab held control of the capital until 2011, when African Union troops drove it out, but it still controls territory in the countryside and attacks government and civilian targets in Mogadishu and elsewhere.