Car bomb explosion injures 4 in Mogadishu

Four people were injured on Monday after a car bomb explosion hits near a hotel where local government officials were holding a meeting on security of the capital Mogadishu, police said. "The explosion occurred near the Oriental Hotel in Mogadishu. Four passers-by were injured in the explosion which also burned other vehicles in the vicinity," police officer Mohamed Harag told Xinhua. Officials said the targeted of the explosion was the hotel where key government officials were holding a crucial meeting on the security of the capital Mogadishu which has lately been witnessing string of bombings. Witnesses said the car was parked in the area for several hours before it went off wounding the passersby and burning the nearby vehicles. "The explosion was deafening. Shrapnel flew all over the place and vehicles were burning and black smoke rising into the sky," Omar Ali, a resident told Xinhua. Emergency services rushed to the scene to help those affected by the blast and police cordoned off the area and began searches for suspects. Somali government officials accuse the radical Islamist group of Al-Shabaab of being behind the explosion and vowed to "mop the anti-peace elements from Somalia". Hours earlier, another explosion hit the car of Somali government official Ahmed Omar Mudane, wounding him seriously. Mudane is deputy governor of Lower Shabelle region. Police said the bomb was planted inside the official's vehicle. In the central Somali town of Beledweyne car bomb went off in a house in the town and local officials told state media that the car bomb went off prematurely and was kept in the house to be used against government targets and AU peacekeepers there. No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attacks but the Islamist Al Shabaab group has often carried similar attacks on government targets. The explosions comes as Somali government forces and African Union Peacekeeping Mission soldiers prepare for a major onslaught to drive the extremist fighters from their hideouts in the south and centre of the country.