17 dead in Somalia bomb blast claimed by Al-Shabaab militants

MOGADISHU: Seventeen people were killed and more than two dozen wounded when a car bomb exploded in Mogadishu on Monday, the latest deadly attack on Somalia´s capital claimed by Al-Shabaab militants.

The blast, near a security checkpoint on the main road to the international airport, reverberated throughout the city and sent massive plumes of black smoke into the air.

Witnesses described scenes of carnage as a car veered out of traffic and detonated outside the main gate of a hotel with tremendous force. "I could see several people lying (on the ground), some of them dead in a pool of blood," said Abdikarim Mohamed, a witness to the attack.

"The blast was huge. It did damage to several nearby buildings." Suado Ali was walking out of a travel agency when she "was forced to the ground by the shockwave". "I saw nearly ten people lying on the ground, some motionless and others screaming for help", she told AFP.

Medina Hospital, the main trauma facility in the Somali capital, was inundated by the dead and wounded. "The bodies of 17 people killed in the blast were taken to the hospital mortuary while 28 others were admitted for various wounds," said Mohamed Yusuf, the hospital´s director. Another witness, Abdullahi Ahmed, said at least two government security personnel manning one of the checkpoints on the road were killed in the blast.