Car Bombings Claim Nine In Somalia

At least nine people were killed and several others wounded in simultaneous car bomb attacks in a town in central Somalia on Wednesday, security officials and witnesses said.

"The terrorists attacked Mahas town this morning using vehicles loaded with explosives," local security official Abdullahi Adan told AFP by phone.

"They have targeted a civilian area and we have confirmed that nine people, all of them civilians, died in the two explosions."

The attack was carried out by Al-Shabaab jihadist forces in the Hiran area of central Somalia, where a major operation against the Al-Qaeda-linked organization was begun last year.

"The terrorists, after having (been) defeated, resorted to desperately targeting civilians, but this will not stop the will of the people to continue defeating them," said Osman Nur, a police commander in Mahas.

"They have killed innocent civilians in the explosions," he added.

According to witnesses, the explosions happened outside a restaurant near a district administration office in Mahas.

"I saw the dead bodies of nine civilians including women and children, this was a horrible attack," said one witness, Adan Hassan.