Mogadishu (Alshahid)-At least 12 people died in a bomb attack in Somalia on Monday targeting Somali and Ethiopian troops in a busy market in the southern city of Baidoa, witnesses and officials said.

The attack on Monday was the deadliest since Ethiopian and Somali troops captured Baidoa, about 250 km to the southwest of Mogadishu, from Alshabab fighters in February.

“We planted a remotely controlled bomb in Baidoa market. We targeted the Ethiopian and the Somali troops. About three of them died,” Sheikh Abdiaziz Abu Musab, spokesman for Alshabab’s military operations, told Reuters.

Witnesses said the bomb was detonated after Somali government troops entered the market, but that the majority of those killed were civilians.

On Thursday, the African Union’s AMISOM force deployed 100 soldiers to Baidoa, the country’s third biggest city and a former rebel stronghold in the south that served as a key recruitment and training centre until it fell to Ethiopian forces.