{"id":33620,"date":"2019-02-28T20:23:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T20:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33620"},"modified":"2019-02-28T20:23:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-28T20:23:00","slug":"deaths-reported-after-bomb-and-gun-attack-in-mogadishu-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33620","title":{"rendered":"Deaths reported after bomb and gun attack in Mogadishu: police"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"body-200771816342556199\" readability=\"96.418245614\">\n<p class=\"speakable\">A suicide car bomb exploded in Mogadishu on Thursday, killing at least five people and destroying buildings in the Somali capital&#8217;s busiest street, police said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">&#8220;The explosion took place in a business centre full of hotels, fairs, shops and restaurants,&#8221; Major Mohamed Hussein, a police officer, told the Reuters news agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"speakable\">&#8220;Many cars are burning now,&#8221; he said following the blast in Maka Al Mukaram street. &#8220;We know five people are dead and the death toll is sure to rise.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A witness saw four dead people and dozens of others injured, Reuters said, adding that he saw blood stains, a dozen cars burning and three buildings including hotels destroyed by the blast.<\/p>\n<p><span>Separately, two witnesses told the AP news agency that the sound of gunfire followed the blast they heard late on Thursday.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The witnesses, shopkeeper Ahmed Mohamed and area resident Fatima Nur said the noises seemed to come from the residence of the chief judge of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/somalia.html\">Somalia<\/a>&#8216;s appeals court on <span>Maka Al Mukaram<\/span>.<\/p>\n<p><span>While there was no immediate claim of responsibility, the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/organisations\/al-shabab.html\"><span>al-Shabab<\/span><\/a>\u00a0armed group has regularly carried out such attacks in the past.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The group, estimated at several thousand fighters, attacks high-profile targets such as hotels and checkpoints in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/topics\/country\/somalia.html\">Somalia<\/a> and abroad.<\/p>\n<p><span>The group&#8217;s stated aim is to remove the Western-backed central government and establish its own rule based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A suicide car bomb exploded in Mogadishu on Thursday, killing at least five people and destroying buildings in the Somali capital&#8217;s busiest street, police said. &#8220;The explosion took place in a business centre full of hotels, fairs, shops and restaurants,&#8221; Major Mohamed Hussein, a police officer, told the Reuters news agency. &#8220;Many cars are burning&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":33621,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33620","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}