Hours later, four civilians were killed and seven wounded when a grenade was thrown into a government tax office in the southern city of Baidoa, witnesses said.
The Mogadishu blast, which triggered bursts of gunfire in the city, was the latest in a wave of bomb attacks in the country where the embattled U.N.-backed government is struggling to secure the city against al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels.
"We were behind the car bomb explosion. We targeted security forces," Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, a spokesman for al Shabaab military operations, told Reuters of the blast in the busy administrative district, near the bustling Kilometre 4 junction.
Police said four suspects had been detained and that they were investigating a second suspicious vehicle in the city.
There has been a surge in suicide bombings and remotely detonated blasts in Mogadishu since al Shabaab pulled most of its fighters out of the coastal city in August, vowing to turn increasingly to al Qaeda-inspired tactics.
Al Shabaab carried out a truck bombing in October which killed more than 70 people, its deadliest attack since the rebellion began in 2007. A spate of smaller attacks followed.
The militants have been weakened in past months, on the back foot against African Union soldiers in Mogadishu and losing territory to Kenyan and Ethiopian forces in southern and central Somalia. There are also signs of growing internal divisions within the rebel ranks. (*)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2012
