Mogadishu's presidential complex targeted

The toll from a car bomb attack at the gate of Somalia's presidential compound has risen. The suicide bomber struck as Somali leaders and UN officials were inside at a meeting.

Mogadishu local government spokesman Abdifatah Omar Halane said Tuesday the bombing late Monday had left eleven date and some 23 people wounded.

The dead included three foreigners, including a Turkish national, he told the German news agency DPA. The majority of victims were civilians, he added.

Security official Ahmer Dahir said the car fitted with explosives detonated near a checkpoint near the entrance to the presidential compound, the so-called Villa Somalia.

Responsibility was claimed by the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab , which has often used the countryside for attacks on Somalia's internationally-backed government.

It is protected by some 22,000 African Union troops from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.

Somalia's information minister Mohamed Hayir Maareye and the UN envoy to Somalia, Nikolas Kay, condemned the attack.

Source: dw.com