A car bomb exploded near a crowded checkpoint in the capital Mogadishu • Most of the casualties: Students • ISIS posted a video showing its activists beheaded 10 Christians in Africa

• Remains of the car bomb in Mogadishu // Photo: AFP

61 people were killed and dozens injured in a blast at a crowded checkpoint in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia. Abdikadir Abed-Rahman Haji Eden, from the ambulance service in the capital, told Reuters: "So far we have counted 61 dead and 51 injured.

No organization immediately claimed responsibility for the explosion, but it is believed to be the operation of Boko Haram, the affiliate of ISIS in Africa. Mogadishu Mayor Omar Muhammad said in a conversation with reporters at the blast site that the government has confirmed that at least 90 civilians, mostly students, were injured in the blast.

Boko Haram regularly commits such attacks in an attempt to undermine the Somali government backed by UN forces and the African Union. The organization has also carried out attacks in East African countries such as Kenya and Uganda.

The organization's deadliest attack so far was in October 2017, when an inferno truck exploded near a gas tanker in Mogadishu, creating a storm of fire that killed nearly 600 people. The group did not always take responsibility for its attacks.

Scene of the attack // Photo: AFP

"Dozens of wounded cried for help, but police immediately opened fire and I rushed back to my home," said 55-year-old Sevedov Ali, who lives near Reuters. Most of the injured were transported to Regip Taipei Erdogan Hospital in the state.

ISIS is decapitating

Meanwhile, ISIS in Africa has released a video showing a decapitation of 10 Christian men in Nigeria. ISIS officials say the video is part of the revenge campaign for the assassination of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi leader in late October. The militant group that released the video, The Islamic State of the West African Province (ISWAP) split from Boko Haram in 2016 and became the dominant jihadist group in the region.

The video was posted on the group's online news channel on Telegram on Thursday, the following day, with captions in Arabic but without audio. The video showed men in beige uniforms and black masks standing behind blindfolded prisoners, then beheading 10 of them and shooting another man.

From the video posted by ISIS

A video released earlier said that the prisoners were taken from Maidoguri and Dematuro in Nigeria's northeastern Borno state, where Muslim extremists have been fighting for years to establish an Islamic state. In the video, the prisoners are pleading with the Christian Association of Nigeria and President Muhammadu Buhari to rescue them.

In a series of tweets on Twitter, President Buhari condemned the killing. "These agents of darkness are enemies of humanity and they do not feel sorry for any victim, whether Muslim or Christian. They cannot be split," Buhari wrote.