MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A car bomb exploded outside a restaurant in Somalia’s capital today, causing an unknown number of casualties, police said.

Security forces are responding to the attack but there is no immediate confirmation of the number of those killed or wounded in the latest attack in Mogadishu, said police officer Mohamed Abdi. He said the car with the bomb was parked near Somalia’s presidential palace.

No group has yet claimed of responsibility for the attack, but it bears the hallmarks of the Somali Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, which frequently carries out attacks in Mogadishu and throughout Somalia.

At least seven people were killed Monday when a bomb planted in a U.N. van exploded in the northern area of Puntland, a semiautonomous region that is normally peaceful.

Al-Shabab, which is allied to al-Qaida, appears to be stepping up attacks in Somalia and across borders even as it loses ground inside Somalia.

Despite losing some of its top leaders in U.S. air strikes and being pushed by African Union forces out of the capital, Mogadishu, and into rural regions mostly in southern Somalia, al-Shabab is still able to carry out deadly bombings against the seat of government and public places seen as popular with foreigners.

The extremists have also attacked neighboring Kenya, which has sent troops to Somalia to fight the insurgents. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for an attack earlier this month at Garissa University College in eastern Kenya in which at least 148 people, most of them students, were killed.

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