Eight people were killed Saturday in a car bomb attack on a checkpoint near the presidential palace in the Somali capital Mogadishu, which was claimed by Al-Shabab group, according to a police official.

District police chief Mucawiye Ahmed Mudey told reporters that eight people, many of them civilians including a mother and her two children, were confirmed dead and eight others wounded in the blast.

Witnesses said the explosion occurred when police stopped the driver at the checkpoint, about one kilometre of Villa Somalia, the presidential palace.