Somalia bomb: Several killed near airport

Several people have been killed in a suicide car bomb blast next to a UN convoy in Somalia, police say.

The bomber drove between the convoy and its security escort near the airport in the capital, Mogadishu, police said.

The United Nations and the British and Italian embassy compounds are based in the nearby area.

No group has claimed responsibility but the al-Shabab militant group, linked to al-Qaeda, has often carried out bomb attacks.

“The explosion was very big and there is smoke all around the area. I can hardly see people lying on the ground, either dead or wounded,” witness Shamso Idle told AFP news agency.

The blast comes a day after al-Shabab militants killed 36 non-Muslim quarry workers in Kenya near the northern town of Mandera.