Blast followed by gunfire reported at police checkpoint in Mogadishu

[Deeq A.]

Thee militants have carried out a car bomb blast in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, according to reports by local media.

The attackers also exchanged fire with security forces and some of the soldiers were injured.

At least 2 civilians are feared dead and 6 others are injured, local media has reported.

The attack comes just a few days Somali security agency has claimed to have arrested a senior al-Shabab leader.

Al Shabaab controls swathes of territory and several towns in Jubbaland, an autonomous region in southern Somalia.

The militants, who want to overthrow the Somali government, have killed thousands of Somalis, and hundreds of civilians across East Africa, and in a decade-long insurgency.

Somalia is still trying to claw its way out of the embers of the civil war that engulfed it in 1991 when clan warlords overthrew a dictator and then turned on each other.

View the full article