The Turkish Embassy in Mogadishu says a Turkish citizen was killed Sunday following an explosion near the city’s busy K-4 junction.
The embassy told VOA Somali the victim was an engineer working for a Turkish company.
Witnesses told VOA Somali there was an explosion in the vehicle the victim was riding in. The explosion is believed to have been from improvised explosive device planted in the car.
The al-Shabab militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, claiming the engineer was working at the Turkish military training facility in Mogadishu.
Al-Shabab also claimed a killing in the central Somali town of Galkayo. Major Khalif Nur Shil, commander of joint security forces in the town died from wounds suffered in an attack by gunmen armed with pistols as he left a mosque late Saturday.
By Harun Maruf
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Turkish engineer killed by car bomb in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu
car bomb attack in the Somali capital Mogadishu has killed a Turkish citizen, police said Sunday.
The man was killed when explosives fitted to his car exploded on Sunday, police told dpa.
“A Turkish a civil engineer was mercilessly blown up in his car near KM4 street,” said police spokesman Ali Hassan.
The heavily injured engineer was taken to the Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Training and Research Hospital but was not able to be saved.
It was unclear who planted the bomb, but the police suspect militant group al-Shabaab, they said.
Somalia has launched an investigation into the attack. Turkey’s embassy in Mogadishu is closely following the process, according to Demirören News Agency.
On Saturday, al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for a roadside bombing targeting a local government official in the port city of Bosaso. Eight people were killed in the incident.
The terrorist group al-Shabaab has fought the Somali army and African Union peacekeeping troops for over a decade.
The al-Qaida-linked group was driven out of Mogadishu in 2011, but still controls large swathes of remote areas in the south and center of the country.
