Suicide Blast in Central Somalia Kills 12

At least 12 people died Saturday in a suicide attack in a restaurant in the central Somali town of Beledweyne claimed by the Shebab, witnesses said.

"It was horrible, I counted 12 people killed -- among them soldiers -- and many others were injured," Mohamed Islow Ali, a witness, told Agence France Presse by telephone.

"There were a lot of people in the restaurant when the bomber blew himself up, many people have died including civilians," said Hussein Ali, another witness.

"The attack was carried out by one of the mujahedeen. Thanks to Allah, he has killed many of the enemy including Ethiopian soldiers and Djiboutians," Sheikh Mohamed, a Shebab commander in the nearby town of Bulaburde, told AFP.

The attack targeted a restaurant said to be popular with the military. Ethiopian soldiers, as well as Djiboutians from an African Union force and Somali soldiers are all stationed in Beledweyne.

Men from all three forces had gathered there to drink tea when the attacker struck, local people said.

In June 2009, 20 people including Somalia's security minister were killed in Beledweyne when a suicide bomb blast claimed by the al-Qaida-linked Shebab ripped through a hotel.

The town lies some 300 kilometers (185 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu close to the border with Ethiopia.

The Shebab have been driven out of Somalia's major towns, including the capital Mogadishu and the key southern port of Kismayo, by a U.N.-mandated African Union force that now numbers 17,700 men.

However the group still controls large swathes of southern Somalia and has over the past few months stepped up the scale of its suicide attacks.