Saturday, September 07, 2013
At least 18 people were killed in the Somali capital Mogadishu on
Saturday when two blasts ripped through a busy parking lot next to a
restaurant, police said."There were two heavy explosions at a parking lot near the National Theatre," police officer Mohamed Adan told AFP.
"At
least 18 people were killed in the attack," said Mohamed Dahir, another
police officer. An AFP reporter said he had seen 12 bodies at the scene
of the attack.
Police and witnesses said the first blast was a
car laden with explosives that was parked by a restaurant, the Village,
close to the theatre.
"Minutes after the bomb went off, I saw
severed flesh flying past," said Idris Yusuf, who was in the restaurant
at the time of the attack and who sustained slight leg injuries.
Nearby buildings were destroyed by the blasts, he said, and passers-by came running over to help the victims.
The
second blast, which followed minutes later, was a "suicide bomber who
blew himself up in the crowd of civilians who rushed to the scene of the
first blast," Ahmed Weli Said, a Somali government security official
said.
The National Theatre re-opened in 2012 after two decades.
Just weeks later, Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents struck, with a
suicide bomber blowing herself up and killing two of the country's top
sporting officials who were attending an event there.
Somalia's
embattled government, selected in November in a UN-backed process, was
hailed at the time by the international community as offering the best
chance for peace in Somalia since the collapse of the central government
in 1991.
A 17,700-strong African Union force fighting alongside
the national army has forced Shebab fighters from several towns in the
past two years.
Shebab fighters, who have claimed responsibility for a string of recent attacks, remain a potent force, however.
Their
most brazen recent attack was a suicide commando assault on a fortified
UN compound in the centre of Mogadishu in June that killed 11.