Somalia: Car Bomb Blast Near Parliament Kills And Wounds Several

At least three people have been killed and eight others wounded after a car bomb exploded near a checkpoint very close to the Somali parliament headquarters in the capital, Mogadishu. A security official & also witnesses reported the explosion on the Saturday as the explosive laden vehicle passed through a security checkpoint and causing security forces to open fire. The car exploded

close to another checkpoint at the Sayidka junction, according to local media and police sources. The police were chasing the hostile vehicle after spotting it a few kilometres away from where it exploded, the security official Abdirahman Mohamed told the media. Three 3 civilians have died according to the information we have received so far and eight others are wounded, he said.

The police opened fire on the vehicle and chased it and this has allowed many people to flee away from the road. This has really limited the number of casualties the bomb blast could have caused, the official added. Witnesses said they heard gunfire and saw vehicles and three-wheel tuk-tuks scatter before the heavy blast occurred. I was at a gym very close to where the blast

occurred, but thanks to God Almighty we have heard the gunshots before the blast. And this alerted many people including myself and we fled from the area to take cover before the bomb vehicle reached the very area of the explosion, Dahir Osman, a witness, told the media. The blast was huge, I was inside a shop and I saw police chasing a vehicle on the wrong side of the road. It

crashed into several vehicles and also tuk-tuks before it exploded close to the checkpoint as police continued opening fire on the vehicle, said another witness, Aisha Ahmed, the news agency reported. While no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, Mogadishu has been regularly targeted with attacks by the al Qaeda linked al Shabab group who have been waging a long

and the violent armed uprising seeking to unseat the internationally backed government in Mogadishu. They were driven out of Mogadishu in 2011, but still control swathes of territory from where they plan and launch frequent, deadly attacks against the government and civilian targets. The United Nations have expressed its concern that a further delay in the country’s election could unleash political turmoil & by paving the way for

exploitation by the armed group, which has threatened to attack the polls. Somalia was due to hold elections on February 8, but they were delayed as the President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed and the regional leaders squabble over the voting process. On Wednesday, the UN Security Council called on the federal government and regional states to urgently resume talks and agree on arrangements to hold elections as soon as possible.