The attacker was stopped by a soldier who recognized him as an Al-Shabaab element while trying to enter a building housing several Somali legislators before detonating his explosive vest, killing himself and wounding several others including the soldier.

The soldier later succumbed to the injuries while undergoing treatment in a hospital.

Baidoa, located 250km northwest of Mogadishu, was the seat of Somalia’s transitional parliament until the hardline Al-Shabaab captured it three years ago.

Ethiopian soldiers fighting alongside Somali government forces took control of Baidoa in February this year.

African Union troops deployed in the town earlier this month, the first time the force has dispatched troops outside the capital Mogadishu since the 10 000-strong force was set up five years ago.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s bombing, but suspicion is likely to fall on the Al-Qaeda allied Al-Shabaab militants who battling the Somali government.

Earlier this month a bomb blast in Baidoa’s market killed at least 11 people and wounded several, an attack claimed by the Al-Shabaab.

The blast occurred days after the African Union sent the first patch of the 2,500 personnel expected to be deployed in the city to keep law and order and replace the current Ethiopian troops in the city in the near future.