Car Bomb Kills 5 in Mogadishu Café Blast

Five people were killed in a powerful car bomb blast at a cafe in the Somali capital Mogadishu that was packed with football fans watching the Euro 2024 final, local media said, citing police.

Images posted online showed a huge fireball and plumes of smoke billowing into the night sky as the explosion ripped through the popular restaurant in the center of the city.

"A car bomb detonated tonight outside Top Coffee Restaurant... placed by Kharijite terrorists," the Somali National News Agency reported, using the term officials adopt to describe the Al-Qaeda linked Al-Shabaab jihadist group.

"Preliminary police reports confirm five fatalities and around 20 injuries," SONNA cited police spokesperson Major Abdifitah Aden Hassan as telling state media.

Somali National Television reported the same information about the bombing, which took place as young men were watching the match between Spain and England.

Police have cordoned off the area, which is close to the presidential palace compound known as Villa Somalia and was very busy at the time of the bombing.

Al-Shabaab has been waging a bloody insurgency against Somalia's fragile federal government for more than 17 years and has carried out numerous bombings in Mogadishu and other parts of the country.

There had been a relative lull in attacks in recent months as the government pressed on with an offensive against the Islamist militants. But five inmates said to be Al-Shabaab fighters were killed in a shootout with prison guards in an attempted jailbreak from the main prison in Mogadishu.

Three guards were also killed and 18 others wounded in the confrontation, prison officials said, after the prisoners managed to get hold of weapons.

Somalia last month called for the African Union to slow the planned withdrawal of its forces from the troubled country.