The explosion of an explosives-laden truck at a checkpoint in the central Somali city of Beledweyne killed 15 people and injured 40 others, Somali police said, calling it a suicide attack.
“We found the bodies of 15 people, most of them civilians who were nearby,” the director general of the Hirshabelle Ministry of Humanitarian and Disaster Management, Abdifatah Mohamed Yusuf, told the Associated Press (AP) news agency.
“Twenty of the injured were admitted to hospitals in Beledweyne, while another 20 are in critical condition, prompting a request for airlift to Mogadishu for advanced medical treatment,” he said.
Hirshabelle is a state that includes Beledweyne, capital of the Hiran region and which has been the center of the Somali government’s latest military offensive against Al Qaeda extremists, the East African branch of Al Shabab.
Images posted on social media show black smoke spreading and a destroyed truck cab burning at the checkpoint.
Suleyman Abdi Ali, director of Beledweyne General Hospital, said the bodies of 10 victims were brought to his hospital.
So far, the attack has not been claimed, especially by Al Shabab, which frequently carries out such attacks and controls parts of Somalia.
Source: TSF
