Deadly Somalia attacks as bomb hits capital and African Union soldiers ambushed

At least five people have been killed and 13 others injured in a car bomb blast near a police station in Somalia's capital Mogadishu.

The explosion shattered a month of relative calm in the city, which is often a target of the extremist group al-Shabab.

The blast near Waberi police station along the busy Maka Almukarramah road may have been a suicide bomber, police chief Mohamed Hussein said.

The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab often carries out deadly bombings in Mogadishu against high-profile targets such as hotels and checkpoints.

Most of the victims of the latest attack were civilians.

The exact target of the blast is unclear, but it occurred amid a traffic jam while soldiers were searching cars at a nearby intersection.

Somali prime minister Hassan Ali Khaire said no such blast had occurred in the capital for a month.

At the blast scene, rescue workers and civilians carried bloodied bodies and injured victims to hospitals.

In another attack later, a Somali military officer said fighters with the al-Shabab extremist group killed at least eight African Union soldiers in an ambush in the south of the country.

Colonel Muhyadin Yasin said they attacked a military convoy near Bulo-Marer in the Lower Shabelle region.

Al-Shabab claimed that the attack killed 39 soldiers.

Uganda's defence ministry confirmed the attack and said an unknown number of troops were killed.