At least six people, including two of Somalia’s top sports officials, were killed when a female suicide bomber struck at Mogadishu’s national theatre.
Al Shabaab insurgents claimed responsibility for the blast that killed the heads of Somalia‘s football federation and Olympic committee.
The bombing was an apparent attempt to kill the prime minister as he spoke at an event to mark the first anniversary of the country’s new satellite television channel.
While the al Qaeda-allied militants abandoned the capital last August, they have struck targets regularly in the heart of the coastal city using roadside bombs, mortars and suicide bombers.
A soldier guarding the newly opened theatre said the bomber had been stopped but Abdiweli Mohamed Ali’s security team had insisted she be allowed in because she was carrying police ID.
“The prime minister was speaking inside the theatre when the blast took place, but he is safe, unhurt,” Gilbert Nitunga, deputy spokesman for the African Union said.
Ambulance workers collected the bodies as the wounded were rushed to hospitals.
Al Shabaab said it had targeted government officials and lawmakers with explosives planted ahead of the event, and denied that it had used a suicide bomber.
“We were behind the theatre blast. We targeted the infidel ministers and legislators, and they were the casualties of today,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, the spokesman for al Shabaab’s military operations, said.
The attack comes ahead of a planned political transition in Somalia, with the Western-backed government’s term due to end in August, when elections have been scheduled in what has been described in the West as the world’s worst failed state.
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