MOGADISHU  20 Jan (ANA) - Somali insurgents linked to al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a car bombing on Saturday that wounded at least 15 people in Afgoye, northwest of the capital Mogadishu.

 

Police said the injured included Turkish contractors as well as Somali nationals.

 

Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu news agency said at least four Turkish employees of a construction firm were wounded and are being treated in hospital, citing information from the Turkish embassy in Mogadishu.

 

“A speeding suicide car bomb rammed into a place where the Turkish engineers and Somali police were having lunch,” police officer Nur Ali told Reuters from Afgoye.

 

“So far, we know three Turkish engineers and their translator were injured,” he said. “Two other policemen were injured in the blast.”

 

Al Shabaab, which frequently carries out bombings to try to undermine Somalia’s central government, which is backed by the United Nations and African Union peacekeeping troops, said it carried out the attack.

 

“We are behind the martyrdom of the suicide car bomb in Afgoye,” Abdiasis Abu Musab, a spokesman for the group, said. “We targeted the Turkish men and the Somali forces with them. There are casualties of death and injuries.”(ANA)

FA/ANA/20 January 2020--------