Early reports suggest car bomb outside Mogadishu’s legislature may have killed at least one person.
A large explosion has rocked the Somali capital on Wednesday, although the cause and the number of casualties were not immediately clear.
“The explosion went off outside the Somali parliament. We don’t know if it was a suicide bomber. Police are here and
they’ve surrounded the area,” a witness told the Reuters news agency.
A reporter for the AFP news agency at the scene said the explosion may have been a car bomb and that at least one person was killed.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the blast, but the al-Qaeda-linked fighters with the hardline group Al Shabab have conducted a series of guerrilla-style attacks in the capital since pulling out of fixed positions there last year.
Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri this week urged all Muslims to support Shabab, who want to overthrow the embattled federal government and replace it with Islamic law.
In recent months, they’ve suffered major setbacks, with African Union troops wresting several strongholds from them. The insurgents have vowed to topple newly elected President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who took office in September after being chosen by the country’s new parliament, bringing an end to eight years of transitional rule.
An offensive led by the 17,00-strong AU force alongside Somali forces has stripped the Shabab of most of the towns they held. But analysts have warned the group are still a dangerous force, reverting to guerrilla tactics and carrying out targeted attacks.
Sources Aljazeera