Several people were wounded after the main motorcade of Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was targeted by a roadside bomb in Mogadishu on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
The attack near the presidential compound was perpetrated by the militant sect al-Shabaab which claimed responsibility for what appeared to be a failed assassination bid.<\/p>\n
The group have been waging an Islamist insurgency against successive governments in Somalia since 2006 and has been responsible for a series of bombings in and around the capital.<\/p>\n
President Mohamud escaped unscathed, according to information put out by the information ministry which stopped short of confirming fatalities from the blast.<\/p>\n
However witnesses said at least three bodies were found at the scene.<\/p>\n
The bomb went off shortly after President Mohamud\u2019s motorcade left the palace for the main airport on his way to supervising a military expedition against the militants in the Middle Shabelle region of southern Somalia.<\/p>\n
Hours later Mr. Mohmud\u2019s office said the president was at the front lines of the war against al- Shabaab and held a meeting in Mogokori district with the leader of Hirshabeelle region and army officers leading the operations.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n In recent weeks government troops backed by African peacekeepers and US airstrikes have stepped up operations to flush the militants out of the area.<\/p>\n Several of Somalia\u2019s international partners have condemned the attack including the UN, UK, Egypt and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), calling it a \u2018cowardly and desperate act\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Several people were wounded after the main motorcade of Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was targeted by a roadside bomb in Mogadishu on Tuesday. The attack near the presidential compound was perpetrated by the militant sect al-Shabaab which claimed responsibility for what appeared to be a failed assassination bid. The group have been waging an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":15705,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":0,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"APA News","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,2362,1129],"tags":[1179,2049,189],"class_list":["post-15704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-africa","category-featured","category-security","tag-hassan-sheikh-mohamud","tag-mogadishu","tag-somalia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}