Suicide attack on tea shop in Somalia capital kills at least seven

A suicide bomber blew himself up at a shop selling tea in Somalia’s capital, killing at least seven people, police and witnesses have said.

The explosion on Friday occurred inside a tea shop in Bar Bulsho Mogadishu near the presidential palace in central Somalia, said police spokesman Sadik Dudishe.

“All the casualties were people spending time to drink tea,” Dudishe said.

The cafe is frequented by members of the Somali security forces, as well as civilians.

Al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on its Arabic media unit Shahada News Agency, the SITE Intelligence Group reported on Friday.

It put the number of dead at 11 and wounded at 18; its numbers on casualties in attacks often differ from government figures.

Adan Qorey, a resident of the Bar Bulsho area, said the tea shop was often crowded in the afternoon and evening with patrons drinking tea and chewing khat, a mildly narcotic native shrub also known as miraa.

The Friday afternoon blast occurred at a checkpoint on a road leading to the parliament and the president’s office and the shop is frequented by soldiers, witnesses said.

Friday’s attack came barely a day after five civilians were killed and 13 others wounded in a car bombing near a market in central Somalia.

A truck bombing on Saturday in the central town of Beledweyne killed 21 people, razing buildings and injuring dozens.

In June, al-Shabab, which aims to topple the central government, killed 54 Ugandan soldiers at their base southwest of Mogadishu.

The spate of attacks came as Somalia’s beleaguered government has admitted that it has suffered “several significant setbacks” in its fight against al-Shabab fighters.

Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office in May last year promising an “all-out war” against the fighter group.

His government launched a major offensive against al-Shabab in August last year, joining forces with local clan militias in an operation backed by African Union (AU) troops and US air raids.

The group had at one time controlled the capital, until 2011, when it was pushed out by the African Union troops, but it still holds territory in the countryside.