Five killed in Al-Shabaab suicide attack in Somalia

At least five people were killed and 11, amongst them a regional governor, were wounded,  in a suicide attack on Tuesday in southern Somalia, police said. The bombing was claimed by Al-Shabaab militants.

A vehicle laden with explosives ploughed through a guest house hosting government officials in Bardera, 450 kilometres (279 miles) west of the capital Mogadishu, said Hussein Adan, police commander for the area.

"The explosion destroyed most parts of the building and five security guards died in the blast," Adan told AFP.

Eleven people, including Governor Ahmed Bulle Gared, were injured. 

Al-Shabaab, linked to Al-Qaeda, has waged a violent jihadist insurgency against the central government of the fragile nation located on the Horn of Africa for over 15 years.

The group claimed responsibility for the attack through their Shahada News Agency, according to the US monitoring group SITE.

Mohamud Saney, who witnessed Tuesday's attack, said he had "never heard anything as big as the explosion."

"It shook the earth like an earthquake."

In recent months, the Somali army and local clan militias have reclaimed some territory from the militants in an operation backed by the US and an African Union force known as ATMIS.

Despite the gains made by the pro-government forces, the militants have continued to demonstrate their ability to mercilessly strike civilian and military targets.

Some 121 people were killed in October by two car bomb explosions at the education ministry in Mogadishu in October.

The UN last month said that 2022 was the deadliest year for civilians in Somalia since 2017, largely because of an increase in mass-casualty attacks by the jihadist group.

Although forced out of Mogadishu and other main urban centers more than a decade ago, Al-Shabaab remains entrenched in parts of Somalia's rural center and south.