At least nine persons have reportedly been killed and several others wounded in simultaneous car bomb attacks which occurred in a town in central Somalia on Wednesday.
“The terrorists attacked Mahas town this morning using vehicles loaded with explosives.
“They have targeted a civilian area and we have confirmed that nine people, all of them civilians, died in the two explosions,” local security official Abdullahi Adan told AFP.
The attack which has been blamed on Al-Shabaab jihadist fighters took place in the Hiran region of central Somalia, where a major offensive was launched last year against the Al-Qaeda-linked group.
“The terrorists, after having (been) defeated, resorted to desperately targeting civilians, but this will not stop the will of the people to continue defeating them,” said Osman Nur, a police commander in Mahas.
“They have killed innocent civilians in the explosions,” he added.
Witnesses said the blasts occurred near a restaurant not far from a district administration building in Mahas.
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“I saw the dead bodies of nine civilians including women and children, this was a horrible attack,” said one witness, Adan Hassan.
Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has declared “all-out war” against the Al-Shabaab.