Islamist group Al-Shabaab on Monday claimed responsibility for twin suicide car bomb attacks that killed at least 12 people in Somalia, police sources said.
The sources said that a local government official was injured in the second suicide car explosion.
A second suicide carbomb blast hit a military checkpoint on the outskirts of Mogadishu, injuring two people including a local government official, police and witnesses said.
The attack comes minutes after a first suicide carbomb targeting a convoy of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) on a road linking Mogadishu and Afgooye, a small town 20 km west of the capital.
Twelve civilians in a minibus plying the road were killed and 27 were injured after the bus was caught in the blast, local governor Mohamed Sidi said.
Police officer Ali Yare said the second suicide attack that targeted an official of local Mogadishu administration left the official and one of his guards slightly injured.
Al-Shabaab militants claimed responsibility for both attacks, saying five American special forces and a South African trainer were killed in the first suicide attack, which cannot be verified so far.
It was the first attack since the killing of the group’s leader Godane last week in a U.S. drone attack in southern Somalia.
Source: xinhuanet.com