At least 18 people were killed in the Somali capital Mogadishu today when two blasts ripped through a busy parking lot next to a restaurant, police said.
"There were two heavy explosions at a parking lot near the National Theatre," police officer Mohamed Adan told AFP.
"At least 18 people were killed in the attack," said Mohamed Dahir, another police officer. An AFP reporter saw 12 bodies at the scene of the attack.
Police and witnesses said the first blast was a car laden with explosives that was parked by a restaurant, the Village, close to the theatre.
"Minutes after the bomb went off, I saw severed flesh flying past," said Idris Yusuf, who was in the restaurant at the time of the attack and who sustained slight leg injuries.
The restaurant was attacked by suicide bombers in September 2012.
Nearby buildings were destroyed by today's blasts, the witness said, and passers-by came running over to help the victims.
The second blast, which followed minutes later, was a "suicide bomber who blew himself up in the crowd of civilians who rushed to the scene of the first blast," Ahmed Weli Said, a Somali government security official said.
The National Theatre re-opened in 2012 after two decades. Just weeks later, Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents struck, with a suicide bomber blowing herself up and killing two of the country's top sporting officials who were attending an event there.
Somalia's embattled government, selected in November in a UN-backed process, was hailed at the time by the international community as offering the best chance for peace in Somalia since the collapse of the central government in 1991.
A 17,700-strong African Union force fighting alongside the national army has forced Shebab fighters from several towns in the past two years.
Shebab fighters, who have claimed responsibility for a string of recent attacks aimed at overthrowing the government, remain a potent force, however.
Their most brazen recent attack was a suicide commando assault on a fortified UN compound in the centre of Mogadishu in June that killed 11.
The UN compound attack used similar tactics to those employed in April, when a nine-man suicide commando unit blasted its way into Mogadishu's main court complex, killing 34 people.
On July 12, just a couple of days into the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, insurgents killed at least five people in multiple attacks in the capital. A suicide bomber rammed an African Union convoy and a grenade was thrown into a hotel.
Shebab fighters claimed members of their suicide brigade carried out the attack, calling it "a martyrdom operation targeting a convoy of crusaders".
