Bomb blast in Somali capital kills local official

MOGADISHU, Somalia

A local official in the Somali capital Mogadishu was killed and several people wounded on Tuesday when a bomb blast targeted his vehicle, a police official said.

"A vehicle carrying Garasbaley officials including Commissioner Mohamed Abukar Afrah was hit by a landmine explosion while traveling between the Garasbaley and Kahda districts today," Mohamed Ali Dhere, a police official in Kahda, told Anadolu Agency over the phone after the blast.

He said the commissioner was severely wounded in the attack and later succumbed to the wounds in the hospital.

Several people were also wounded and were rushed to hospitals for treatment, he added.

Terrorist group al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group, claimed responsibility for the attack via the internet.

This May, Abdirahman Ahmed Ali Garyare, the previous Garasbaley commissioner, was killed in a similar attack in Mogadishu.

Garasbaley is located on the outskirts of the capital, which is part of the Banadir region.

Al-Shabaab was behind a truck-bombing attack in October 2017 in Mogadishu that took some 600 lives, the worst attack in the Horn of Africa country’s history.