More than 70 killed in Mogadishu car bomb carnage

A car bomb tore through a government compound in Mogadishu today, killing more than 70 people in the deadliest attack by Somalia's Shebab rebels in their 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.

Somali President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed condemned the attack which he said 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.

The United States, a key Somali government supporter, also condemned the Shebab's "complete disregard for human life," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

Somali police spokesman Abdullahi Hassan Barise said the attacker was a Kenyan national named Ashad Abdi Said.

"We have the passport.... He was born in Wajir in northeastern Kenya," he told AFP.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon also expressed shock at the deadly bombing.

"It is incomprehensible that innocents are being senselessly targeted," Ban was quoted as saying by spokesman Martin Nesirky.