Suicide bomber hits Somali capital, dozens killed in south
The car bomb exploded 50 meters from the recently reopened Turkish embassy, near to the Kilometer 4 (K4) junction, a busy intersection in Mogadishu's administrative district. A health official said at least three people were killed by the blast.
The suicide attack piles yet more pressure on a Western-backed government that relies on African Union troops to prop it up and fight an insurgency by Islamist militants who control virtually all of Somalia outside Mogadishu.
Witnesses told Reuters that the security forces stopped the vehicle earlier, before moving the car to a quieter sideroad.
"The troops tried to question the driver and take photographs when the suicide bomber detonated his bomb," Abdiweli Elmi, a policeman on patrol at the junction said.
Two policemen and one civilian were killed, Elmi said.
A Reuters witness said human body parts could be seen around the ripped-apart car and security forces fired into the air to disperse the crowds.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Suspicion is likely to fall on Al-Shabab rebels.
The Al-Qaeda-linked militants, who have fought the government since 2007, have intensified the frequency of suicide attacks in Mogadishu since withdrawing from most of their bases in the capital in August.
A Turkish government official said the target of the attack was unknown. None of Turkey's embassy staff hurt.
Turkey was the first state from outside the immediate region to open an embassy in Mogadishu.
Its interests have been the target of violent incidents since Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan visited Mogadishu in August. Erdogan was the first leader from outside Africa to visit the capital for nearly two decades; Kazinform cites Arab News.
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