As President Obama was in Kenya to discuss the threat from Islamist extremists, in neighboring Somalia at least four people were killed in a suicide car bomb attack blamed on suspected militants of al-Shabab – the extremist group considered the region's biggest danger.
"So far, four people are confirmed dead. We believe al-Shabab is behind the attack," Colonel Abdiqadir Hussein, a police officer, told Reuters of the attack in the capital, Mogadishu.
A spokesman for al-Shabab later claimed responsibility for the attack.
Another official told Reuters that eight others had been wounded in the attack.
On Saturday, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, speaking in a joint news conference with President Obama, referred to al-Shabab attacks in Kenya in 2013 and earlier this year, calling the threat from the group to his country "existential."
"The battle we are fighting is not a Kenyan war; Kenya just happens to be on the frontier," he said, referring to Somalia, long regarded as a failed state that has become a breeding ground for Islamist extremists.
President Obama said the security concerns from the group had been "an extensive topic of conversation" with Kenyatta in closed-door meetings earlier in the day.
Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
