Al-Shabaab militants launched a bomb attack on Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s motorcade as it moved through Mogadishu on Tuesday.

Despite the attack, President Mohamud remained unharmed, according to two senior government and military officials who spoke to Reuters. Presidential adviser Zakariye Hussein later confirmed on X that the president was “good and well on his way to the front lines.”

Eyewitnesses, including soldiers and local residents, reported that the convoy had been hit. A Reuters journalist at the scene saw the bodies of four people killed in the assault near the presidential palace. The explosion occurred near the Eel-Gaab junction, just a short distance from Villa Somalia, the country’s presidential residence.

At the time of the attack, President Mohamud was en route to the airport for a scheduled flight to the Adan Yabal district in Middle Shabelle, a key battleground where government troops are engaged in ongoing operations against Al-Shabaab fighters.

“No amount of cowardly action, boosted by misinformation, can threaten this nation,” Hussein wrote on X, reinforcing the government’s stance against terrorism.

Although Al-Shabaab frequently launches attacks in Somalia as part of its long-standing insurgency, Tuesday’s attack was the first direct attempt on President Mohamud since 2014. During his first term in office, the militant group bombed a hotel where he was delivering a speech.

Just hours after the bombing, state media broadcast images of President Mohamud arriving in Adan Yabal, where he met with top military commanders amid a three-week-long Al-Shabaab offensive in the region.