A car bomb has exploded outside a cafe in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, killing at least nine and injuring several others as patrons were watching the final of the Euro 2024 football tournament on TV, the government said.
The al-Qaeda-linked armed group, al-Shabab, has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s deadly attack via an affiliated radio station, saying the bombing targeted a place where security and government workers meet at night.
Mohamed Yusuf, an official from the national security agency, told AFP news agency on Monday that nine people have been killed in the incident, raising the official death toll of five given by the authorities late on Sunday.
“Nine civilians were killed and 20 others wounded in the explosion,” he said.
“There were many people inside the restaurant, most of them youth who were watching the football match… but thanks to God, most of them made their way out safely after using ladders to climb up and jump over the backside perimeter wall,” Yusuf added.
Images posted online showed a huge fireball and plumes of smoke billowing into the night sky as the explosion ripped through the popular restaurant in the centre of the city on Sunday.
Police officer Mohamed Salad had rushed to the scene a few minutes after the blast and told AFP that several bodies were discovered under the debris.
The bomb also destroyed 10 cars and damaged several buildings nearby in a well-guarded area near the presidential palace.
Despite losing large swaths of territory to government forces and their allies, al-Shabab has frequently launched raids and deadly attacks targeting the government.
Al-Shabab has been fighting to topple the fragile central government in Mogadishu for more than 17 years, carrying out numerous bombings and other attacks in the capital and other parts of the country.
Somalia’s federal government depends on the support of foreign troops to stay in power.
The government has joined forces with local armed groups to fight the group in a campaign supported by an African Union force and US air raids.
But the offensive has suffered setbacks, with al-Shabab earlier this year claiming it had taken multiple locations in the centre of the country.
Somalia last month called for the African Union to slow the planned withdrawal of its forces from the troubled country.
UN resolutions called for troop numbers in the AU peacekeeping mission, known as ATMIS, to be reduced to zero by December 31 with security handed over to the Somali army and police.
The third and penultimate phase was to see the departure of 4,000 ATMIS soldiers – out of a total of 13,500 – by the end of June.
But Somalia’s government said it wanted to see only 2,000 soldiers leave in June and the remaining 2,000 in September.
