A car bomb has ripped through a government compound in the Somali capital Mogadishu, killing more than 70 people in the deadliest attack by the African country's Shebab rebels in their near five-year insurgency.
Witnesses described the carnage as the worst they had seen in Mogadishu since Somalia plunged into chaos two decades ago and said the devastation resembled scenes from World War II.
The suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the compound housing four ministries at a strategic crossroads, two months after the al Qaeda-linked rebels dismantled all their positions in the capital.
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Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has condemned the attack which he says claimed "more than 70 people and (left) 150 injured; most of them were young students."
"I am extremely shocked and saddened by this cruel and inhumane act of violence against the most vulnerable in our society," he said in a statement.
"At this time, when the country is in the midst of a worsening humanitarian crisis, the enemy could not have attacked the Somali people at a worst time," the president added.
Somalia is the worst affected country by a harsh drought that has left some 13 million people in the Horn of Africa facing starvation.
Somali police spokesman Abdullahi Hassan Barise said the attacker was a Kenyan national, but a Shebab-owned radio denied the suicide bomber was Kenyan, identifying him instead as a Somali.
A Shebab official who did want to be named said one of their fighters carried out the attack.
"One of our Mujahidin made the sacrifice to kill TFG officials, the African Union troops and other informers who were in the compound," he said.