Death Toll in Mogadishu Truck Bombing Tops 90

An international aid group working in Somalia says that more than 90 people have died as a result of Saturday’s massive truck bombing in the capital Mogadishu. The bomb went off at a checkpoint during morning rush hour. No one has claimed responsibility although Mayor Omar Muhamoud blamed the attack on Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida-affiliated Islamist group that has claimed responsibility for numerous bloody attacks in a country that has been torn apart by rival warlords for most of the past three decades. At least two of the dead in Saturday’s bombing are said to have been Turkish engineers working on a road project. Turkey has been a major backer of Somalia since a 2011 famine. The mayor added that many of the dead were students heading to classes at the city’s universities, while others were police officers manning the checkpoint. Nearby Medina Hospital received over 100 victims suffering from varying degrees of wounds. The bombing is said to be the deadliest attack in the city in more than two years. In 2017, al-Shabaab was blamed for a massive truck bomb that went off next to a fuel tanker, killing upwards of 600 people.