<div><span style="font-size: 1rem;">A suicide attack claimed by the Somali extremist militant group Al-Shabab killed at least seven people and injured nine others in Mogadishu on Sunday, the army and eyewitnesses told AFP.</span><br></div><div><br></div><div>A “desperate terrorist” blew himself up on Sunday morning near a line of new recruits who were enrolling at the Nacnac military base in the south of the Somali capital, local military commander Abdullahi Adan told AFP.</div><div><br></div><div>“Seven people were killed and nine others injured,” he said.</div><div><br></div><div>“I was close to the site of the explosion, it was huge and I could see dead and injured people,” eyewitness Ahme Gobe told AFP.</div><div>Another eyewitness, Asha Omar, spoke of seeing at least 10 people taken away by ambulance.</div><div><br></div><div>Al-Shabab, an extremist group linked to Al-Qaeda that has been waging an insurgency against the Somali state for 15 years, claimed responsibility for the attack.</div><div><br></div><div>Its fighters killed at least 19 civilians in central Somalia earlier this month.</div><div><br></div><div>The group carried out a major attack on a Mogadishu hotel in August, leaving 21 people dead and 117 injured following a 30-hour siege.</div><div><br></div><div>Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has faced a resurgent Al-Shabab since his election in May and vowed to wage an “all-out war” against the insurgents.</div><div><br></div><div>Mohamud also has to grapple with a looming famine caused by the Horn of Africa nation’s worst drought in 40 years.</div><div><br></div><div>Al-Shabab has been driven out of Somalia’s urban centers, including Mogadishu in 2011, but remains entrenched in vast swathes of the countryside.</div><div><br></div><div>The US army on Wednesday said it had killed 27 Al-Shabab militiamen in an air strike in central Somalia in support of the country’s regular forces.</div><div><br></div><div>President Joe Biden decided to restore a US military presence in Somalia in May to fight the militants, approving a request from the Pentagon, which deemed his predecessor Donald Trump’s rotation system too risky and ineffective. - AFP&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>bnbd24/fas</div>