At least five people were killed late Wednesday in a car bomb blast in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, local officials said.
The attack -- the second in three days in the city -- occurred in the Hamarweyne district on Mogadishu's old port, the official in charge of the neighborhood, Abdulkadir Mohamed, said.

War-torn Somalia's government remains riddled with corruption while Shebab Islamists are as deadly as ever, U.N. investigators warned in a damming report seen by AFP Monday.
The report also says that weapons sent to the national army and supposed to be used to defend the internationally-backed government have been seen on open sale in at least one market where Shebab agents bought arms.

Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said Monday that a car bomb which killed at least 13 people the day before was an act of "desperation" by Islamist Shebab insurgents.
The attack took place on Sunday evening on a busy road leading to the government district, outside a popular cafe.

Gunmen shot and seriously wounded a Somali journalist working for a London-based television channel in an attack outside his home in Mogadishu on Sunday, colleagues said.
Abdirisak Jama, Mogadishu bureau chief for Somali Channel Television, received several bullets to the stomach in the attack carried out around noon by unknown assailants.

Somali military commanders Monday celebrated the capture of the last major port held by Islamist Shebab insurgents, as the government secured control of the town for the first time in over two decades.

Somali troops backed by African peacekeepers on Sunday recaptured the last major port held by the Shebab, a key source of revenue for the Islamist militia, Somali officials told Agence France Presse.
"The army is in full control" of the port of Barawe, 200 kilometers (120 miles) southwest of Mogadishu, the Somali military official Abdi Mire said.

A Somali woman has been stoned to death in an Islamist Shebab-controlled part of the country for secretly marrying several husbands, officials and witnesses said Saturday.
Witnesses said the woman was buried up to her neck and pelted with rocks and stones by hooded men in front of a large crowd in the southern coastal district of Barawe.

Ten people arrested during a major security swoop in Uganda's capital were remanded in custody Wednesday after appearing in court on terror-related charges.
Ugandan police carried out a wave of arrests and reportedly uncovered explosives in the capital Kampala on September 13, just hours after the U.S. embassy in Uganda told its citizens in the country to seek shelter indoors because of fears of an "imminent" attack.

Somali pirates on Tuesday freed a German-American journalist and writer, Michael Scott Moore, two and a half years after he was kidnapped in the war-torn Horn of Africa nation, officials said.
A Somali pirate source, who asked not to be named, said a ransom was paid for his release, without giving more details.

Mass arrests, extortion, deportation and suspicion: one year since Somali gunmen staged a four-day massacre in Nairobi's Westgate mall, Somalis in Kenya say the attack has left their community battling harassment and denigration.
