Car bomb blast kills at least eight, injures 16 in Somalia capital

A car bomb went off on Saturday at a checkpoint near the Somali parliament, killing eight people and injuring 16, medical and police sources said.

"We have confirmed eight people killed and 16 others wounded in the blast," the private Aamin Ambulance service said. 

A second blast on a key road leading to the airport of the Somali capital Mogadishu did not cause any casualties.

"I was at a short distance from the blast and I saw several people dead including two women, a passenger and two men, some of whom were elderly," a witness Hussein Mohamed told the AP.

"This is really very terrible."

Militant group Al Shabab, which often targets the capital, said the blasts were meant to strike the first line of security checkpoints for the heavily fortified airport and the presidential palace. The airport is home to a number of diplomatic offices. The palace is a frequent target of the group.

Revenge attack

Nine civilians were executed by a local militia after the killing of a policeman by Al Shabab, police said on Saturday.

The revenge attack on Friday just outside Galkayo — one of the most developed cities in the centre of the country — targeted the Rahanweyn clan, several of whose members are suspected of being Shabab militants.

"This was a horrible incident, a gruesome killing against nine unarmed innocent civilians in southern Galkayo. All of the civilians belong to one clan and the gunmen shot them dead in one location a few minutes after suspected Shabab gunmen killed" a policeman, Mohamed Abdirahman, a local police official said.

"This is an unacceptable act and we will bring those perpetrators to justice," said Hussein Dini, a traditional elder.

"Their killing cannot be justified. It seems that the merciless gunmen were retaliating for the security official who they believe was killed by Al Shabab gunmen belonging to the clan of the victims."

Witnesses told local media that the victims were rounded up from the streets or their homes and then shot dead on the outskirts of Galkayo.

Local officials have in the past fingered the Rahanweyn clan for fomenting instability in the region and supplying fighters to the Shabab.

Galkayo, situated about 600 kilometres (380 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu, straddles the frontier with the self-proclaimed autonomous regions of Puntland and Galmudug.

The city has been the scene of violent clashes between forces of the two regions in recent years and also witnessed violence between the two rival clans occupying its northern and southern districts.