Al-Shabaab claims responsibility for attack targeting Somali and Ethiopian troops near a market in the city of Baidoa
At least 12 people died in a bomb attack in Somaliaon Monday targeting Somali and Ethiopian troops in a busy market in the southern city of Baidoa, witnesses and officials said.
It was the second blast in the country in less than a week. Last week, a female suicide bomber killed six people, including two sports officials, in a theatre near the presidential palace in Mogadishu.
The attack was the deadliest since Ethiopian and Somali troops captured Baidoa, about 250km to the south-west of Mogadishu, from al-Qaida-linked al-Shabaab rebels in February. Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack.
"We planted a remotely controlled bomb in Baidoa market. We targeted the Ethiopian and the Somali troops. About three of them died," Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, spokesman for al-Shabaab's military operations, told Reuters.
Musab said soldiers had killed civilians after opening fire following the blast, which the regional governor has denied.
Witnesses said the explosion happened outside a butcher's.
"As we shopped we suddenly heard a blast. I counted 10 dead civilians and over 30 others injured," Shukri Hussein, a mother of five, told Reuters over the telephone from Baidoa market.
"Most of the casualties were in front of the butchery inside the main market. All the casualties were civilians [and] a soldier who was slightly injured," she said, adding that the explosive was hidden in a woman's shopping bag.
She said soldiers surrounded the market after the blast, shooting in the air.
Ali Aden, a nurse at Baidoa hospital, said it had received 35 wounded civilians.
Abdifatah Ibrahim Mohamed, the governor of Bay region in Somalia said at least 12 civilians were killed and more than 30 wounded.
Ethiopia sent troops into Somalia last year to open another front against al-Shabaab after Kenya deployed soldiers in the south. On Thursday, the African Union's Amisom force deployed 100 soldiers to the country's third biggest city and a former rebel stronghold in the south that served as a key recruitment and training centre until it fell to Ethiopian forces.