The death toll from the suicide car bomb that targeted Somali capital Mogadishu has risen to 65 while more than 50 others were injured, medics and witnesses said Tuesday.

The car bomb went off near a government building in the center of the city in the K4 area near the Ministry of Education where students were sitting for a foreign scholarship examination.

''I can say that now we know 65 people dead and more than 50 others wounded in the attack,'' Ali Muse head of the local emergency service said.

Eyewitnesses said that the blast which targeted a Somali government ministry building was very huge that it could be heard miles from the scene. Most of the dead and injured were said to be students and other civilians around the area.

''We could hear the huge explosion around the ministry building. Dozens were killed and charred bodies lay scattered in the areas and scores of others were wounded,'' Omar Fidik, an eyewitness, told Xinhua.

A pro-Al Shabaab website described the attack as ''martyrdom operation,'' claiming that it targeted a ceremony at a government building where cabinet ministers were attending, a claim that cannot be independently verified.

Somali government officials accuse the radical Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab group of being behind the attack which they said killed mainly civilians.

Medical officials say they are ferrying the wounded to hospitals where doctors say they were inundated with the injured.

This attacks marks as the first major assault by the radical Islamist group since they withdrew from Somali capital Mogadishu August after major government offensive to drive them out of the city.

Islamists group of Al Shabaab which is fighting Somali government forces and African Union peacekeeping forces have often carried out similar attacks on government and AU forces targets in Mogadishu.

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