Deadly car bombing hits Somali restaurant
MOGADISHU, Somalia -- A car bomb killed at least five people and injured several others at a restaurant in Somalia's capital on Tuesday, police said.
Security forces have secured the area around the Banoda restaurant in Mogadishu, said senior police officer Mohamed Abdi. The car with the bomb was parked near Somalia's presidential palace, he said.
No group has yet claimed of responsibility for the attack, but it bears the hallmarks of Somalia's Islamic extremist group al-Shabaab, which frequently carries out attacks in Mogadishu and throughout Somalia.
At least seven people were killed Monday when a bomb planted in a U.N. van exploded in the northern area of Puntland, a semiautonomous region that is normally peaceful. Four U.N. staff working to help Somali children were among those killed in that attack, the U.N. children's agency announced Tuesday.
Al-Shabab, which is allied to al Qaeda, appears to be stepping up attacks in Somalia and across borders even as it loses ground inside Somalia.
Despite losing some of its top leaders in U.S. air strikes and being pushed by African Union forces out of the capital, Mogadishu, and into rural regions mostly in southern Somalia, al-Shabaab is still able to carry out deadly bombings against government targets and public places seen as popular with foreigners.
The extremists have also attacked neighbouring Kenya, which has sent troops to Somalia to fight the insurgents. Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for an attack earlier this month at Garissa University College in eastern Kenya in which at least 148 people, most of them students, were killed.