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NAIROBI, Kenya – A suicide bomber blew himself up at a restaurant in the Somali city of Baidoa and another explosion hit a nearby hotel, killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 30 others, authorities said on Saturday.
Colonel Ahmed Muse told the Associated Press that the bomber had entered the restaurant with explosives on his wrist.
Many injured at Baidoa's main hospital were seriously injured, said nurse Mohamed Isaq at the AP.
The al-Shabaab extremist al-Qaeda group claimed responsibility for the explosions via its radio arm, Andalus. An explosion targeted a hotel owned by former Somali minister Mohamed Aden Fargeti, one of the presidential candidates for the region in the November elections.
Baidoa is a key economic center located about 250 km west of the capital, Mogadishu and about the same distance east of the Ethiopian border. Al-Shabab, which controlled Baidoa between 2009 and 2012 before being hunted by government forces backed by Ethiopia, still holds parts of southern and central Somalia.
The explosions took place one day before the first anniversary of the deadliest attack in its history, a bombing that claimed the lives of more than 500 people in Mogadishu.
In recent days, attention has focused on Baidoa, the interim capital of the Southwest State, while Al-Shabab's high-profile defender, Mukhtar Robow , seeks to exercise the regional presidency in November.
On Saturday, he visited wounded in the main hospital in Baidoa, condemning the attacks and calling on people to join forces to fight against the extremist group he once served as deputy chief.
Robow is the highest official ever to leave Al-Shabab. He went to the Somali government last year after the United States canceled a $ 5 million reward for his capture.
The Somali government said earlier this month that Robow was not eligible for the presidency of the region because he is still under US sanctions imposed on him in 2008, when he was identified as "Specially Designated World Terrorist".
Robow, who has not yet responded to the government's statement, continued his campaign and remains on the list of candidates.
He is one of the supporters of the former Somali parliament speaker and outgoing president, Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden. Former Somali intelligence chief Hussein Osman has resigned.
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