MOGADISHU, Somalia
Militants stormed a high-end seaside hotel in Mogadishu on Sunday, killing at least seven people and wounding more than 20 as they detonated a car bomb then opened fire with assault rifles in the latest attack in the Somali capital.
Islamist insurgent group al
Shabaab said it was behind the assault on the Elite Hotel in Lido beach, and
that its gunmen battled security forces who rushed to the scene.
At about midnight, state news
agency SONNA said the operation was over and that 205 people had been rescued,
“including ministers, lawmakers and civilians,” citing Farhan Qarole, a
security forces commander at the hotel.
“All the four militants armed
with AK-47 were shot dead. They were aboard the car bomb, they got off ... and
the four militants went in the hotel to fight,” SONNA said, adding that full
details of casualties will be given later.
The hotel is owned by Abdullahi
Mohamed Nor, a lawmaker and former finance minister, and is frequented by many
government officials and members of the Somali diaspora.
“There were officials of
(President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo’s) government inside the hotel when we
attacked,” said a statement broadcast on al Shabaab’s Radio Andalus.
The attack follows an uprising at
Mogadishu’s central prison on Monday. SONNA said at least 15 prisoners and four
guards were killed when security forces beat back the rebellion.
A witness, Ahmed Ali, said on
Sunday he had heard “a huge blast at the hotel, gunfire followed, and
then clouds of smoke”.
“So far we confirmed seven people
died, including two attackers, two junior directors and three civilians,”
information ministry spokesman Ismail Mukhtar Omar told Reuters.
“Fifteen people were injured,” he
added.
Aamin ambulance service head
Abdikadir Abdirahman had earlier told Reuters the service had transported 28
injured people from the scene before exchanges of gunfire started.
Hotel owner Nor posted on
Facebook after escaping the building: “May Allah have mercy on all those who
died in the attack by the terrorists on civilians particularly on Elite Hotel
in which I was in.”
Mohamed Nur, a government worker
who lives near Lido beach, said the exchange of gunfire was “terrible”.
“Stray bullets reached us near
the beach,” he said.
Somalia has been embroiled in
violence since 1991, when clan warlords overthrew leader Siad Barre and then
turned on each other.
Since 2008, al Shabaab has been
fighting to overthrow the internationally-recognised central government and
establish its rule based on its own interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.
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