MOGADISHU, Somalia-A Somali police official says a suicide bomber has detonated an explosives-laden auto outside the United Nations Mine Action Service offices in Mogadishu, killing three other people.
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Al-Shabab’s radio Andalus is reporting that 57-year-old Salah Badbado, who defected to the extremist group in 2010, carried out one of the bombings near a United Nations de-mining agency office and the African Union’s main base in Mogadishu.
The explosions shattered windows in the nearby airport, Reuters reports.
Unlike previous attacks by the group, which is linked to al-Qaida, gunmen did not accompany the suicide bombers, said police officer Mohamed Hussein.
The terror group has been blamed for attacks in Somalia and neighboring countries targeting worldwide peacekeepers, aid workers and journalists, as well as soft targets such as schools and churches.
No UN personnel were killed, said UNSOM.
More than 22,000 troops and police serve in the AU force, which also includes troops from Burundi, Djibouti, Kenya, Sierra Leone and Ethiopia.
One suicide vehicle bomber tried to speed through the barrier at the UN Mine Action Services office but guards shot at the auto.
People arriving on global flights said the blasts shattered windows in the airport buildings.
“The two explosions were carried out by two fearless Mujahedeen suicide bombers and they have targeted two different locations where the so-called AMISOM peacekeepers are stationed”, it said, referring to the African Union mission to Somalia.
In an official statement, the AU mission in Somalia condemned, “these senseless attacks that aim to disrupt and cripple the lives of ordinary Somalis”.
It is said al-Shabaab was behind the attack, and that they were fighting back to recapture some of the main towns after being pushed out by United Nations peacekeepers.
The UN refugee agency on Tuesday increased its funding appeal to almost $US500 million ($A669.43 million) to finance the voluntary return and reintegration of Somali refugees from the sprawling Dadaab camp in Kenya, which hosts some 330,000 Somalis.
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“Despite the security situation now in Somalia, people are returning on a daily basis”, UNHCR’s representative in Somalia Caroline van Buren told a news briefing in Geneva. “We have killed dozens of them”, Abdulaziz Abu Muscab, a spokesman for the group, said.
