Somali president survives Al Shabaab bomb attack on motorcade

Al Shabaab militants targeted Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in a bomb attack on his motorcade as it travelled through the capital Mogadishu on Tuesday.

Two senior government and military officials told Reuters that President Mohamud was safe following the attack, and presidential adviser Zakariye Hussein wrote in a post on X that he was "good and well on his way to the front lines."

Soldiers and local residents who witnessed the attack confirmed that the president's convoy had been hit. A Reuters journalist at the scene saw the bodies of four people killed in the assault near the presidential palace.

The attack occurred near the Eel-Gaab junction, a short distance from the presidential palace.

President Mohamud was on his way to the airport for a flight to Adan Yabal district in Middle Shabelle region of Hirshabelle State to boost the morale of troops fighting the militants.

“No amount of cowardly action, boosted by misinformation, can threaten this nation,” Mr Hussein wrote in his X post.

While Al Shabaab regularly carries out attacks in Somalia as part of its decades-long campaign to topple the government, Tuesday's attack was the first to directly target Mr Mohamud since 2014, during his first term in office, when they bombed a hotel where he was speaking.

Hours after the attack on Tuesday, state media showed images of the President in the Adan Yabal, where government forces are battling a three-week-old al Shabaab offensive.

Mr Mohamud was accompanied by top military commanders.