Twin bombings in Mogadishu kill Somali soldiers

GlobalPost

At least five people have been killed and six others injured in two bomb blasts in Somalia’s capital city of Mogadishu.

A bomb planted under a tree in the north of the city went off Saturday in the capital’s sprawling Bakara market, where Somali police were overseeing the demolition of illegal kiosks and businesses.

Police officer Mohamed Aden told the Associated Press that the explosion killed one person and injured six others.

In a separate attack, a roadside bomb planted under a tree in Mogadishu’s northern Karan district killed at least three Somali government soldiers and one pedestrian, security officials told the BBC.

More from GlobalPost: A symbolic step towards a 'normal' Mogadishu

No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the radical Islamist militia Al Shabaab has launched similar acts of violence in Mogadishu since pulling out of the capital last year in a bid to consolidate its control over other parts of Somalia.

In March a suicide bomber killed at least five people in an attack at Mogadishu’s presidential palace, while in April four people died after a female suicide attacker blew herself up during an address in the capital by Somalia’s Prime Minister, the Agence France Presse reports.

Earlier this month a mortar shell was fired into a crowded neighbourhood of the city, killing seven civilians, including two children. 

More from GlobalPost: Mogadishu still wary after rebels retreat

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