Two Islamist militants shot dead 30 people, including six members of parliament (MPs), in a suicide attack on a Mogadishu hotel yesterday, a senior Somali official said.
The militants from the Shebab insurgency were disguised as government security forces. They blew themselves up to avoid arrest after the indiscriminate attack on the hotel housing MPs and Somali civil servants.
The brazen attack just a stone's throw from the presidential palace marked a new escalation on the second day of clashes that had already left 29 civilians dead across the war-ravaged Somali capital.
The operation by the al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab group during Ramadan drew strong condemnation from the Western-backed transitional government and its African Union backers.
“Thirty people died in this ambush. Six of them are members of the Somali parliament and four are Somali government civil servants,” Somali Deputy Prime Minister Abdirahman Haji Adan Ibbi told reporters.
“The 20 others are innocent civilians who died in this horrible incident,” he said.
A reporter who managed to enter the Hotel Mona compound said the doors of every single room and even the toilets had been smashed open by the two attackers.
Officials visiting the scene of the carnage held their noses because of the stench of burned flesh and smoke.
Witnesses and hotel staff said the attackers were wearing government security uniforms and shot dead security guards at the gate to the compound as they rushed into the three-story building.
“They rained gunfire on everybody. Nobody stood a chance. I was lucky because they aimed at me but I jumped out of the window and survived,” hotel employee Adan Mohamed said.
“People were screaming, there was total panic. When they decided they had finished killing everybody, they climbed to the balcony and started opening fire on government forces outside the hotel,” he said.
One government soldier who took part in the fighting and refused to give his name said one of the bombers detonated his suicide vest on the balcony when he saw they were surrounded.
“These two guys were on the balcony, close together, shouting Allahu Akbar [God is greatest]. It seems one of them failed to detonate his vest, but the other did and that probably killed both of them,” he said.
“One of them was blown to pieces, only the head remains. The other one's body is completely burned, he is all black,” he said.
The bloodbath at Hotel Mona, which lies in the small area of Mogadishu firmly under government control and provides accommodation for dozens of MPs and other officials, comes on the second day of a deadly battle in the city.
The Shebab on Monday launched a major offensive against government army barracks in several Mogadishu districts, sparking clashes that left at least 29 civilians dead, said Ali Muse, head of ambulance services.
“This operation is meant to eliminate the invading Christians and their apostate government in Somalia. The fighting will continue and, God willing, the mujahidin will prevail,” Shebab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Rage said on Monday.
Nvidia Corp yesterday unveiled its new high-speed interconnect technology, NVLink Fusion, with Taiwanese application-specific IC (ASIC) designers Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯) and MediaTek Inc (聯發科) among the first to adopt the technology to help build semi-custom artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure for hyperscalers. Nvidia has opened its technology to outside users, as hyperscalers and cloud service providers are building their own cost-effective AI chips, or accelerators, used in AI servers by leveraging ASIC firms’ designing capabilities to reduce their dependence on Nvidia. Previously, NVLink technology was only available for Nvidia’s own AI platform. “NVLink Fusion opens Nvidia’s AI platform and rich ecosystem for
WARNING: From Jan. 1 last year to the end of last month, 89 Taiwanese have gone missing or been detained in China, the MAC said, urging people to carefully consider travel to China Lax enforcement had made virtually moot regulations banning civil servants from making unauthorized visits to China, the Control Yuan said yesterday. Several agencies allowed personnel to travel to China after they submitted explanations for the trip written using artificial intelligence or provided no reason at all, the Control Yuan said in a statement, following an investigation headed by Control Yuan member Lin Wen-cheng (林文程). The probe identified 318 civil servants who traveled to China without permission in the past 10 years, but the true number could be close to 1,000, the Control Yuan said. The public employees investigated were not engaged in national
CAUSE AND EFFECT: China’s policies prompted the US to increase its presence in the Indo-Pacific, and Beijing should consider if this outcome is in its best interests, Lai said China has been escalating its military and political pressure on Taiwan for many years, but should reflect on this strategy and think about what is really in its best interest, President William Lai (賴清德) said. Lai made the remark in a YouTube interview with Mindi World News that was broadcast on Saturday, ahead of the first anniversary of his presidential inauguration tomorrow. The US has clearly stated that China is its biggest challenge and threat, with US President Donald Trump and US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth repeatedly saying that the US should increase its forces in the Indo-Pacific region
ALL TOGETHER: Only by including Taiwan can the WHA fully exemplify its commitment to ‘One World for Health,’ the representative offices of eight nations in Taiwan said The representative offices in Taiwan of eight nations yesterday issued a joint statement reiterating their support for Taiwan’s meaningful engagement with the WHO and for Taipei’s participation as an observer at the World Health Assembly (WHA). The joint statement came as Taiwan has not received an invitation to this year’s WHA, which started yesterday and runs until Tuesday next week. This year’s meeting of the decisionmaking body of the WHO in Geneva, Switzerland, would be the ninth consecutive year Taiwan has been excluded. The eight offices, which reaffirmed their support for Taiwan, are the British Office Taipei, the Australian Office Taipei, the
RSS