Six wounded in Somalia airport laptop blast

Six people were wounded Monday when a laptop bomb exploded at an airport in Somalia, police said, the second such attack in recent weeks targeting passenger aircraft.

The bomb exploded at a checkpoint in the small central town of Beledweyne, some 325 kilometres (200 miles) north of the capital Mogadishu, where last month Al-Qaeda-linked Al Shabab insurgents claimed responsibility for a bomb attack which ripped a hole in a passenger plane shortly after takeoff.

"A laptop computer went off at the screening area, and the security forces have also managed to defuse two other explosive devices, one of them planted in a printer," Police Lieutenant Colonel Ali Dhuh Abdi told reporters. "Six people were wounded, two of them policemen."

United Nations (UN) medical staff members help wounded civilians at Mogadishu airport on February 29, 2016 after at least 30 people were killed in twin bomb attacks claimed by Shebab Islamists at a busy restaurant in the Somali city of Baidoa. The explosions shredded the roofs of nearby buildings, tore chunks out of vehicles and left bodies, plastic chairs and tables strewn across the road. The Al-Qaeda aligned Shebab jihadists claimed responsiblity for the attacks, saying local officials were targeted. / AFP / MOHAMED ABDIWAHAB

The blast on Monday took place at a checking area where security screening is carried out before cargo and bags are loaded onto planes. The security checkpoint was manned by African Union troops from Djibouti as well as Somali government security forces.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.