Nairobi: Somalia’s Al Shabab Islamist extremists attacked a hotel in the capital Mogadishu at dawn on Sunday killing at least nine people and injuring 10, a police official said.
The attack started at daybreak when a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle laden with explosives at the gate of the Sahafi Hotel before gunmen shot at people inside the building, Capt. Mohammad Hussain said. There was a secondary explosion outside the hotel that is suspected to have come from another car bomb.
“They have killed the owner of the hotel, a former military general, and other officials during the attack,” Hussain said by phone from the scene as gunfire could be heard in the hotel.
“There’s a hostage situation inside the hotel,” Hussain said.
Al Shabab rebels, who have been waging an insurgency against Somalia’s weak UN-backed government, claimed responsibility for the attack through the group’s radio Andulus.
The insurgents are still in control of the hotel, Shaikh Abdul Aziz Abu Mousab, Al Shabab’s military spokesperson, told the radio station.
Somali troops and African Union forces were at the scene of the attack, according to a Twitter post by the African Union Mission in Somalia, which has deployed troops to bolster Somalia’s government against Al Shabab’s insurgency.
The hotel is often frequented by Somali government officials and business executives and it has been targeted before. Two French security advisers were abducted from the hotel by militants in 2009.
Despite being forced out of Mogadishu and many other cities and towns across Somalia, Al Shabab continues to launch lethal attacks in the capital and elsewhere. The group is fighting to oust the Mogadishu government and install a strict version of Sharia law.
Al Shabab has also carried out attacks in neighbouring countries that have sent troops to support the Mogadishu government.
