By Mohammed Dhaysane
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AA): At least 11 people, including soldiers and civilians, were killed and several others wounded when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a tea shop in Mogadishu’s Wadajir neighborhood on Tuesday evening, said the police.
Dadir Hassan, a police officer in the capital Mogadishu, told Anadolu Agency over the phone that the suicide bomber targeted a busy tea shop near a major military base in Mogadishu.
“The preliminary investigations confirmed that the attack was a result of lone suicide bomber who blew himself at a teashop where security forces and civilians frequented and we can confirm that at least 11 people, including soldiers, were killed and several others wounded,” Hassan said.
Several people, most of them civilians, were also wounded in the suicide bombing and they were rushed to hospitals for treatment, he said.
The police officer added that security forces from different agencies of the government rushed to the scene and investigations are currently underway.
Gen. Dhagabadan military training facility is located hundreds of steps away from where the suicide bomber detonated and there was huge security forces present at the area, according to residents who spoke to Anadolu Agency over the phone after the attack.
Somali-based al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist group al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the suicide attack in Mogadishu on Tuesday evening, saying it had killed 11 soldiers and wounded 16 others.
Somali Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble has condemned the “indiscriminate” terror attack on Tuesday evening that killed at least 11 people, including civilians and soldiers.
“This barbaric act shows how al-Shabaab terrorists are thirsty for the indiscriminate bloodshed of the Somali people, forcing us to cooperate in fighting terrorism,” Roble said.
Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliate, was behind a truck-bombing attack in October 2017 in Mogadishu that took some 600 lives, the worst attack in the nation’s history.
[Archive Photo: A view from the site after bomb exploded near a police convoy in the Somali capital of Mogadishu last month on July 10, 2021. Photographer: Sadak Mohamed/AA]
