A bomb explosion on Saturday killed three people and wounded eight others in Mogadishu, the Somali capital.
Local reports say security officials were chasing a vehicle after identifying it as threat when it exploded right next to a security checkpoint.
The police opened fire on the vehicle, forcing many people to flee the area and limiting the number of casualties the blast could have caused.
No group has claimed responsibility for this attack.
Mogadishu is regularly targeted in attacks by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab group. Saturday’s incident is the second major explosion in the Somali capital in recent weeks.
On January 31, five people, including four Al-Shabaab fighters, were killed in a siege on Afrik Hotel in the city. Eight other civilians were left injured in the incident which lasted over eight hours.
Earlier in January, two Turks were killed in a suicide bombing incident that also left three others dead.
The insurgent group, which was driven out of Mogadishu in 2011, seeks to turn Somalia into a fundamentalist Islamic state. It previously claimed responsibility for other attacks in Mogadishu, including a truck bombing in December which killed 85.