Terrorist group, Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for a suicide blast that killed a Somali governor and three bodyguards in Galkayo on Sunday.
“The governor of the apostate administration in the Mudug region was killed in a martyrdom operation in Galkayo today”, a statement posted on a pro-Shabaab website said hours after the blast.
Somali security officials said the attacker rammed a scooter taxi into a car carrying Ahmed Muse Nur, governor of the north-central Mudug province, and his security detail before detonating an explosive device.
“Everyone in the vehicle including the governor and his driver died, there was smoke and fire all everywhere”, a witness named Bile Mohamed told reporters.
Somali official, Muse Ahmed confirmed the toll of four and added: “… there are other casualties but the details are still being investigated.”
In late March, the governor of Puntland, a neighbouring semi-autonomous province, was killed in similar circumstances.
Al-Shabaab, a terrorist group waging a deadly insurgency in Somalia, claimed responsibility for that attack as well.
Galkayo lies around 600 kilometres (375 miles) north of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, straddling the border of two self-proclaimed semi-autonomous states — Puntland and Galmutug, which includes Mudug.
The city has been rocked by fighting between forces from both regions and also by rival clans in the northern and southern parts of the town.
Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for blast that killed Somali governor, bodyguards
Workers clean the site following a car bomb attack near a security checkpoint in the Somali capital, not far from the presidential palace in Mogadishu on March 7, 2019. - Four people were killed and nine wounded when a car bomb exploded near a restaurant in central Mogadishu, police said, as the Al-Shabaab jihadist group claimed responsibility. The blast "was caused by a car loaded with explosives, we perceive that it was parked near a restaurant along the road," Somali police official Ibrahim Mohamed told AFP. (Photo by Mohamed ABDIWAHAB / AFP)