MOGADISHU
At least 60 suspected Al-Shabaab militants have been arrested in the south-central Somali city of Baidoa following deadly twin suicide bombings, a senior police officer said Saturday.
"We are interrogating a number of men who we strongly believe are linked to Al-Shabaab and have knowledge of yesterday's bombings," Colonel Mahad Abdirahman Adan told The Anadolu Agency.
At least 15 people, mostly politicians and journalists, were killed in twin suicide bombings in Baidoa on Friday.
According to officials, a suicide bomber drove an explosive-packed vehicle into a crowd outside a hotel seconds before it went off.
A second suicide bomber walked into a second hotel in the area before blowing himself up, he added.
In the wake of the attacks, house-to-house searches were carried out by the Somali army and peacekeepers from the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM) in the south-central city, which was once controlled by Al-Shabaab.
Although the insurgent group recently lost most of its strongholds following a sustained offensive by AMISOM and the Somali army, it has continued to carry out bombings and shootings across the war-torn country.
Somalia has experienced on-again, off-again civil strife since the 1991 ouster of autocratic president Siad Barre.
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