MOGADISHU - A suicide car bomb rammed into a Somali military training base in the southern port city of Kismayu on Saturday, the militant group, al Shabaab, and local residents said.

"We heard a huge blast from the military training camp in Kismayu and then gunfire followed," Hussein Nur, a shopkeeper in the city, told Reuters by phone.

Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab's spokesman for military operations, said the group was behind the car bomb and claimed there were several casualties.

Police and government officials were not immediately available for a comment.