MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A suicide car bomb struck a local government office in Mogadishu on Sunday, police said, destroying the building and a school opposite.
Ambulances took casualties to hospitals as people searched through the rubble for survivors, a Reuters witness said. The blast also blew off the roof of a mosque and damaged houses nearby.
"A suicide car bomb (rammed) into the district office of Hawlwadag in Mogadishu. It is too early to know casualties," Abdullahi Hussein, a police officer, told Reuters.
A Reuters journalist on the scene saw a human hand and blood stains in the rubble.
Somalia has been convulsed by lawlessness and violence since 1991. Islamist group Al Shabaab is fighting to dislodge a Western-backed government protected by African Union-mandated peacekeepers.
(Reporting by Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar; Writing by Omar Mohammed; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)