Somalia: 6 injured in laptop bomb explosion at airport

Somali authorities said at least six people including two African Union soldiers were injured Monday in an explosion at the airport in Beledweyne.

According to Lieutenant Colonel Ali Dhuh Abdi, a laptop exploded in the safety control area where bomb experts also defused two other explosive devices.

“A laptop packed with explosives exploded at the front gate of the airport, as the security officers were trying to inspect a car carrying the devices, six people were injured, two of them police officers,” Abdi said.

Six wounded in Somalia airport laptop blast: police https://t.co/BvS6r6jIrl pic.twitter.com/98i2GOU7W0

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He said the explosion was similar to the February attack when a blast occurred inside a Daallo airline flight bound for Djibouti, an attack that al-Shabab militant group claimed responsibility for.

In that explosion, a passenger believed to be the bomber fell out of the crack created by the blast and died.

The aircraft exploded a few minutes after the plane took off from the airport in the capital Mogadishu but landed safely minutes later.

Beledweyne is 325 km north of Mogadishu and the explosion occurred in a security zone where security officials inspect goods and travel bags.

Al Shabaab were driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 by AMISOM troops but have been carrying out guerrilla and suicide attacks against the internationally recognised Somali government.

Meanwhile, according to official sources, an Australian Navy ship seized a huge cache of weapons near Oman’s coast from a fishing vessel bound for Somalia.

The Australian navy, which patrols waters around the Indian Ocean as part of an international maritime force, said it had seized nearly 2,000 AK-47 rifles, 100 rocket-propelled grenade launchers, 49 PKM machine guns, 39 PKM spare barrels and 20 mortar tubes from the fishing vessel.