At Least 79 Dead in Truck Bomb Attack in Somalia’s Capital

  • Many of those killed were students, the Associated Press says
  • Somali president blames al-Shabab for ‘heinous act of terror’

Medical personnel carry a civilian who was wounded in suicide car bomb attack at check point in Mogadishu on Dec. 28.

Photographer: Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP
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At least 79 people, many of them university students, died when a truck bomb exploded during rush hour at a busy intersection in Somalia’s capital of Mogadishu, according to the Associated Press and other news reports.

An explosives-laden vehicle hit the taxation office near a junction in Mogadishu, Ahmed Abdi Hussein, a Somali police officer, told Bloomberg News by phone. Another police official said the target was Turkish engineers who were in a vehicle near the intersection, without elaborating on how he got the information.