Deadly Mogadishu bombing

Six people died in the bombing on Saturday when a remote controlled device was detonated on a busy street in downtown Mogadishu.

The bomb went off near the city's busy KM4 junction, close to the Turkish embassy.

"It was apparently targeting a former official who died in the attack, some of his security guards were also among the dead," Abdi Osmail, a Somali security official, told the AFP news agency. The official was later identified as Abdikafi Hilowle Osman, a former member of the local government in Mogadishu.

Police said the bomb had been planted in a pile of rubbish along the side of the road. The remaining dead were his bodyguards, and two passing civilians.

The area around the wreckage was sealed off and cleared of onlookers.

The Islamist insurgent group al-Shabab has unleashed a series of similar attacks on the capital in recent weeks.

Although al-Shabab has been driven out of fixed strongholds in major towns across the country with the help of African Union forces, it has proved itself to still be capable of launching attacks on the government and security forces.

Last month, the group said it had killed two parliamentary delegates in a shooting and car bombing. In February, the militants killed guards and officials in an attack on Mogadishu's heavily guarded presidential palace.

Al-Shabab has also targeted Kenya, including an an attack on Westgate shopping mall, which left 67 people dead. It was in retaliation for Kenya's military intervention against its fighters on the Somali side of the border.

rc/msh (AFP, AP, Reuters)