Explosion kills three people in Mogadishu

Three people have been killed and over twenty others were injured on Saturday evening after an explosion hit a restaurant in Somali capital, Mogadishu.

Abdifatah Omar Hallane, a spokesman for Banadir region in Mogadishu said  that it was rush hour when the bomb exploded at the restaurant.

A witness said the explosion rocked the restaurant around the Tarabuunka area in Mogadishu’s Hodan district where two soldiers and a civilian killed.

Gunfire has been heard after the explosion.

The restaurant is popular among Somali government soldiers who are stationed at a nearby base.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing, but suspicion centred on the extremist al-Shabaab group, which has waged an insurgency against Somalia’s fledgling government.

Somalia has been experiencing violence since the country devolved into civil war in the early 1990s.

The state’s collapse provided a breeding ground for warlords, pirates and Al-Shabaab group.

Despite being ousted from most of its key strongholds in south and central Somalia, Al-Shabaab continues to launch deadly guerrilla attacks against the Somali government and African Union forces across large parts of the horn of Africa nation.