Mogadishu: Somalia’s Al Shabaab militant group has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s suicide bomb attack in Somali, which killed at least 6 people and injured several others.
“We are targeting convoy of special forces units Alpha Group, and killed many of them at suicide attack,” Xinhua reported citing Al-Shabaab spokesperson Ali Mohamud Rage as saying.
The bomb exploded in front of a military base in Mogadishu.
Witnesses said the explosion was so huge that the shock waves could be felt from a distance. “I felt the ground was shaking and soon there was heavy smoke” said a witness near the scene of the explosion.
A UN official who sought anonymity told Xinhua that the explosion shook the heavily-guarded airport area, causing panic among people nearby.
The explosion also destroyed four vehicles and structures in the street where the vehicles were.
The explosion could be seen as retaliatory attacks by Al Shabaab after losing some of its key leaders in US airstrikes, including the immediate former leader Abdi Godane and recent intelligence head Abdishakur Tahlil.
The explosion comes days after the attack by the Al Qaida linked group, Al Shabaab, at a base of the African Union peacekeeping force known as AMISOM, which killed seven soldiers and a contractor, Dec 25, 2014.