— Several people were killed as a huge blast went off on a road near the main international airport in the Somali capital. The Al-Shabab extremist group has claimed responsibility, saying it was targeting "foreign officers." The Al-Qaeda-linked group controls parts of Somalia and often carries out bombings at high-profile locations in the capital. The Somali National News Agency reported "unspecified casualties." But an official told Reuters news agency that at least eight people were killed in the Wednesday explosion. "A car bomb targeted a convoy, including bullet proof cars using Avisione street, we do not who owns the convoy. We carried eight dead people from the scene," Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of an ambulance service, told Reuters. Witnesses had said a UN convoy seemed to be the target of the bombing. But the UN mission in Somalia denied the reports. AFP quoted Somali security official Mohamed Abdi as saying that the bombing "caused devastation in the area." A witness also told AFP that the explosion was "so huge that it has destroyed most of the buildings nearby the road and vehicles passing by the area." Wednesday"s explosion came just days after Somali leaders agreed on a new timetable for long-delayed elections. The Horn of Africa nation had been locked in a political crisis amid a feud between the prime minister and president. Somalia is also battling an insurgency by Al-Shabab. The extremist group has been fighting government forces since 2007. It had controlled Mogadishu until it was pushed out by African Union forces in 2011. Somali leaders announced on Sunday they had struck a deal to wrap up parliamentary elections by Feb. 25, after repeated delays that have threatened the stability of the troubled country. The agreement was reached after several days of talks hosted by Prime Minister Mohamed Hussein Roble with state leaders to try to defuse a bitter political crisis. "The ongoing election of the House of the People (lower house) will be completed between the periods of Jan. 15 and Feb. 25, 2022," said a statement issued after the talks in the capital Mogadishu. Roble and Somalia"s President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, better known by his nickname Farmajo, have long been at loggerheads over the long-delayed elections, with fears their squabbling could erupt into violence. The long-running dispute between the two leaders erupted again last month when Farmajo suspended Roble, the man he had himself chosen as premier in September 2020. But Roble defied the order, accusing the president of violating the constitution and of an "attempted coup", while troops loyal to him patrolled the streets of the capital. Meanwhile the General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) condemned strongly the terrorist bombing that took place in Mogadishu, Somalia, resulting in the death and injury of a number of innocent people. The Secretary-General of the OIC, Hissein Ibrahim Taha, expressed his strong condemnation of this heinous operation. He offered his condolences to the families of the victims and to the government and people of Somalia, wishing a speedy recovery for the injured, renewing the OIC"s condemnation of terrorism, in all its forms and manifestations, and its support for the Somali government"s efforts to confront and combat it. — Agencies