NAIROBI, Kenya — More than a dozen people, including at least four Ethiopian soldiers, were killed Saturday in a suicide attack on a cafe in western Somalia, near the border with Ethiopia. Al-Shabab, the militant Somali Islamist group, claimed responsibility.
The attacker, strapped with explosives, blew himself up around 11 a.m. in Beledweyne, a city about 200 miles northwest of the capital, Mogadishu, officials said. Col. Isack Ali Abdulle, a police commander in Beledweyne, told local reporters that 15 people were killed in the attack.
Through a spokesman, Abdiaziz Abu Musab, al-Shabab claimed responsibility and said the suicide bomber had been targeting soldiers from Ethiopia and Djibouti who frequented the cafe. He gave a higher death toll, saying 25 people had been killed.
A spokesman for the African Union, which has a peacekeeping force in Somalia to help local forces fight al-Shabab, said soldiers from Djibouti and Ethiopia did patrol the area of Beledweyne, though Ethiopian troops are not part of the peacekeeping mission. Four or five Ethiopian soldiers were among the dead, a Somali official said.
The attack Saturday came four weeks after al-Shabab laid siege to the Westgate mall in Nairobi, the capital of neighboring Kenya, which brought worldwide attention to the ferocious militant group. Inside Somalia, al-Shabab has long posed a significant threat, carrying out large-scale attacks in Mogadishu at a U.N. compound, a court complex and a popular restaurant.
In a statement, Somalia’s prime minister, Abdi Farah Shirdon, confirmed the attack, saying the bombing had killed “a number” of Somalis and calling al-Shabab fighters “brainwashed.” He did not give an exact death toll.
Al-Shabab rose to power as a nationalist movement resisting the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006. The group grew to control large swaths of the country, including Mogadishu, but it has been beaten back in recent years by Somali troops and African Union forces.
The African Union contingent was able to dislodge al-Shabab from key cities in Somalia, but the group has responded by focusing increasingly on asymmetric attacks.