Blast meant for officials ended up killing members of public near presidential palace and national theatre, say police
A suicide car bomber killed at least 10 people near the presidential palace in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Monday, in an explosion that police said was aimed at a senior security official.
The attacker blew up his car while driving along a boulevard that runs between the palace and the national theatre. Tea rooms lining the route were engulfed in fire and a public minibus passing by burst into flames.
"The suicide car bomber targeted a senior national security officer whose car was passing near the theatre," said Abdiqadir Muhammad, a senior police officer.
"Most of the people who died were on board the minibus – civilians.
"This public vehicle coincidentally came between the government car and the car bomb when it was hit. Littered in the scene are human hands and flesh."
Security in Mogadishu has improved greatly since a military offensive drove Islamist rebels allied to al-Qaida out of the city in August 2011. But bombings and assassinations in Mogadishu blamed on militants still occur often.
It was not clear who was behind the bombing. The al-Shabaab insurgent group, which has claimed responsibility for many similar attacks, was not immediately available for comment.
In late September, al-Shabaab withdrew from the southern Indian Ocean port of Kismayu, its last major urban bastion in the east African state, signalling its demise as a quasi-conventional military force, but it pledged to step up a campaign of suicide bombings and hit-and-run attacks.