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Deadly Explosion Rocks Somali Capital Mogadishu, 8 Killed

At least eight people have been killed and 17 injured, including school students, in Somalia’s capital in a car bombing that targeted a United Nations security convoy, officials and witnesses said.

The armed group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the huge blast that came in the early hours of Thursday, rocking Mogadishu and sending a column of smoke above the city. Gunfire echoed around the scene, witnesses said.

“We counted eight dead people and 17 others including 13 students injured,” police spokesman Abdifatah Aden Hassan told reporters. He said a suicide bomber in an SUV full of explosives had targeted a UN security convoy.

Aamin Ambulance service evacuated at least 23 people who were injured in the blast, Abdikadir Abdirahman, the director of the service, told the Reuters news agency.