The blast happened at Mogadishu’s Maka Al-Mukarram road that links the busy Kilometer 4 road intersection with the presidential palace, according to Reuters news agency.

No group has claimed responsibility but suspicion is likely to fall on Al-Shabaab militants battling to topple the UN-backed Somali government.

Somali officials were quoted as saying that a soldier and a civilian sustained injuries after the car detonated.

Security officials claimed they foiled the attacks which they say were aimed at committing terrorism activities intended to cause mass killings in the city. They also said they are holding in custody the suspect behind the Wednesday morning explosion.

There has been a surge in suicide bombings and remotely detonated blasts in Mogadishu since Al- Shabaab pulled out of its fixed positions in city earlier last August.

There have been also mortar attacks in the city earlier this week, with some of them slamming into refugee camps for internally displaced persons in Mogadishu, killing several civilians.

Al-Shabaab militants claimed responsibility of these mortar attacks, saying that they were targeting Somalia’s Presidential Palace, a heavily fortified area in Mogadishu.