Mogadishu: At least 16 people died on early Sunday in a suicide truck bombing outside the port of the Somali capital Mogadishu, the director of the ambulance service said.

‘We assisted 48 wounded people and carried 16 others who were killed in the blast,’ said Abdikadir Abdirahman Adem, director of Mogadishu’s AMIN ambulance service.

Mogadishu residents described a huge blast that could be heard across the city and a plume of smoke that rose above the skyline.

A spokesman for the city admistration, Abdifatah Omar Halane, confirmed the blast but gave a lower toll of ‘nearly 10’ killed. He said investigations were underway.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but the Al-Qaeda aligned Shabaab militant group stages suicide bombings on government, military and civilian targets in the capital and elsewhere in the war-torn country.

Sunday morning’s attack struck close to the entrance to Mogadishu’s busy seaport.

‘The bomber targeted a civilian area, there were porters and other small scale traders in the area when the blast occurred,’ said Ibrahim Mohamed, a senior police officer.