Mogadishu, August 09: At least eight people have been killed and 17 others injured in the Somali capital after insurgents fired mortars at the airport and the presidential palace.
The attack occurred on Saturday as the Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed arrived from the Kenyan capital Nairobi after a meeting with the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, police said.
Most of the fatalities occurred in the capital’s crowded Bakara market.
“The rebels fired mortars at the airport and the presidential palace when the president arrived and the government forces responded,” senior police official Mohamed Ali told AFP.
“Eight civilians were killed in the market and 17 others taken to hospital,” added Ali Muse, Head of Mogadishu’s ambulance service.
Clinton promised to double the arms flow to war-battered Somalia and further support the African peacekeepers guarding the area around the presidential palace in Mogadishu.
Somalia has been mired in unrest since 1991 and is currently in the grip of a fierce insurgency, with hard-line militias waging a campaign to topple the African Union-backed government.
—–Agencies