Deadly suicide bombing targets Foreign Ministry

AP - A suicide car bomb exploded near Somalia’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday, killing at least four people, including the bomber, a police official said.

Police official Ali Hassan confirmed the attack outside the ministry in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital. He said the bomber and at least three others were killed. Six people were wounded and taken to the hospital, Hassan said.

Eyewitness Tohow Abdi said he saw body parts torn off by the blast. 

The blast came the same day that Kenya’s ministers of defense and foreign affairs are in Mogadishu to meet with government leaders after Kenya on Sunday launched military operations in southern Somalia against al-Shabab militants.

The blast occurred several miles (kilometers) from where those meetings are believed to be taking place.

Earlier this month al-Shabab militants unleashed a suicide bombing in Mogadishu that killed more than 100 people, many of them students gathering to see if they had earned scholarships to study in Turkey. It was the deadliest bombing in Somalia by al-Shabab.
African Union and Somali troops battling al-Shabab militants have mostly pushed the insurgents out of Mogadishu, but al-Shabab has vowed to carry out attacks in the capital.