Eleven killed in a suicide attack in the Somali capital

At least eleven people were killed and fifteen others injured today in a suicide car bomb attack in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, police told EFE.

These figures are higher than the six dead and ten wounded previously confirmed by hospital sources quoted by local media.

The attack occurred in Waberi district, on the so-called October 21 Road, near Aden Adde International Airport.

The detonation caused a "huge explosion caused by a suicide bomber and targeting a convoy passing through a checkpoint on the eastern perimeter of the airport," police officer Farhan Ahmed Nur, a witness to the incident, told EFE news agency.

"Eleven confirmed dead," Nur added of the attack, which caused a large plume of smoke and extensive material damage to surrounding vehicles and buildings.

The attack apparently targeted a UN convoy, which has offices in the so-called 'Green Zone', which also houses embassies and the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) multinational force.

The jihadist group Al-Shabab, affiliated with the Al-Qaeda terrorist network since 2012, claimed responsibility for the attack.

Mogadishu is frequently attacked by Al-Shabab, an organisation that controls rural areas in central and southern Somalia, where it seeks to establish a Wahhabi-style (ultra-conservative) Islamic state.

The jihadist group's bloodiest attack occurred in the Somali capital in October 2017 with truck bombs that killed more than 500 people.

Somalia has been in a state of war and chaos since 1991, when dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown, leaving the country without an effective government and in the hands of Islamist militias and warlords.