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MOGADISHU, SOMALIA —Double Car bomb blasts Saturday rocked Somalia's capital city, Mogadishu, killing scores and causing additional casualties.
A police officer who spoke to VOA on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media said one of the blasts took place near Somalia' Ministry of Education building.
He confirmed that a local journalist, Mohamed Issa Konan, was among the people who were killed in the attack.
He said there were massive casualties from the attack, but added it as too early to say how many people have been killed or injured.
Abdulqadir Mohamed Abdulle, a VOA Somali Service stringer, also has been injured in the attack, according to his colleagues.
The al-Qaida-affiliated Islamist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the bombings, saying it had struck one of Somalia's government ministries in Mogadishu.
Somali police spokesman Sadik Adan Ali Doodishe said at a news conference in Mogadishu after the attack that "scores of people were killed in the attack" and that those responsible targeted civilians, including women, children and the elderly.
He said the cowardly terrorists targeted civilians with bomb blasts, killing mothers with babies on their backs. He said that reveals the heinous action of the terrorists. He noted the bombings targeted the Zobe intersection and an area close to the Ministry of Education.
Extremism conference
Meanwhile, a five-day national conference on combating violent extremism concluded Saturday in Mogadishu. Somalia President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre and regional leaders and scholars attended the closing ceremony of the conference.
Mohamud recently announced a "total war" against al-Shabab militants. Speaking at the ceremony, he said everyone who pays money to al-Shabab knows they are responsible for every explosion, every bullet fired and for all the destruction of every water well. He called on those supporting the group to know that they will die when their time comes, and they will not survive because of the money they paid to al-Shabab.
Somali Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre said al-Shabab misrepresents the Islamic religion and praised religious scholars' efforts to overcome the deadly al-Shabab ideology.
He said al-Shabab endangers lives and human dignity. He emphasized that Somalis must know the situation caused by the drought has dramatically worsened because of al-Shabab's closure of roads preventing people from reaching assistance.
After the conference, Somali religious scholars issued a communique that called out al-Shabab and denounced their ideology. The scholars announced it is forbidden in Islam to pay money to al-Shabab.
Somalia has been grappling with security threats for years, with al-Shabab Islamists being one of the main threats in the Horn of Africa nation.
Since at least 2007, al-Shabab has waged a deadly campaign against the Somali government and international forces that has claimed thousands of lives.