Baidoa(INO)-The death toll from double blasts that hit restaurants in the southwestern Somali town of Baidoa has risen to 25 and more than 46 others were injured, officials said.
The blasts by a car bomb and suicide bomber occurred in the space of three minutes with initial attack occurred after a car bomb was detonated outside a crowded restaurant before a suicide bomber blew him up in another nearby restaurant.
Al Shabab has claimed the responsibility for the attacks that targeted the two restaurants popular with officials and Somali diaspora.
The attacks come one day after the group bombed a hotel and a public garden in the Somali capital, killing at least 18 people, and wounded 25 others.
Witnesses reported chaotic scenes and pools of blood at the two establishments targeted by militants. Death toll may rise as hospital sources said that some of victims they received suffered serious
wounds.
Militants have carried out attacks in the town before, with more than 11 people were killed in a suicide attack which targeted the local administration’s headquarters in March last year.
The town which is the regional capital for the administration led by the former parliament speaker of Somalia Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden is controlled by Ethiopian troops who are parts of the AU forces and Somali forces.
Idale News Online, Baydhabo
