Al Shabaab car bomb rocks Somali capital

Somali government soldiers look at the wreckage of a car bomb that detonated near the Ambassador Hotel in Maka la Mukarama road in Mogadishu, Somalia Wednesday, March, 21, 2012. [...] (AP Photo)

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - A car bomb exploded in the heart of the Somali capital on Wednesday, wounding two people in an attack Somalia's al Shabaab rebel group said was carried out by its militants.

The blast, which triggered bursts of gunfire in Mogadishu, was the latest in a wave of bomb attacks in the country where the embattled U.N.-backed government is struggling to secure the city against al Qaeda-linked Islamist rebels.

"We were behind the car bomb explosion. We targeted security forces," Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, a spokesman for al Shabaab's military operations, told Reuters.

More...