Mogadishu police say foil car bomb attempt

Somali police said Sunday they discovered a parked car full of explosives in a street constantly used by African Union troops in the capital Mogadishu, foiling an attempted bomb attack.

Police spokesman Abdulahi Hasan Barise told reporters the car was found late Saturday parked in a street leading to south Mogadishu?s K4 intersection but he was not able to identify the likely target of what looked like a planned car bombing.

“Security officers were suspicious when they saw the car parked near K4 intersection and after investigating carefully they found that it was full of explosives aimed at harming innocent people,” Barise said.

He said experts had been sent in to defuse the explosives but no one has been arrested in connection with the incident so far.

Barise said the degree of sophistication of the explosives discovered, and indications that the would-be bombers had planned to use mobile phones to detonate them “suggests that Al-Shebab is behind the would-be bomb attack”.

The Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shebab rebels, who previously controlled around half of Mogadishu, pulled in early August but they continue to control parts of the country, including areas that have been declared as hit by famine.

The group frequently claimed responsibility for car-bomb attacks and roadside bombs, often targeting the several thousand African Union troops that have been propping up the transitional government.

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