An attack claimed by militants on a hotel in the Somalian capital killed at least 15 people yesterday, police officials said, and the attackers said they had ended the overnight siege. Army officials separately said they killed at least six militants.
Al-Shabaab fighters reportedly blasted and shot their way into the Hotel Maka al-Mukarama on Friday afternoon, trapping many government officials, sources said.
More than 20 people were injured, Somalian Armed Forces Colonel Abdi Salam Omar said, adding that the number of deaths could still change.
Photo: AFP
Somalia’s ambassador to Switzerland was among those killed, he said.
The attackers detonated a car bomb at the gate of the hotel before entering the compound and firing automatic weapons, Mohammed Said, a police officer, said on Friday.
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement to Radio Andalus.
Security personnel, led by a unit from the elite US-trained special forces troops known as Gaashaan (shield) stormed the hotel on Friday evening and fought the attackers into yesterday.
“At least 15 people died, including Somalia’s ambassador to Geneva, and at least 20 others were wounded,” Colonel Farah Aden, a senior police officer at the scene, told reporters. “Those who died include civilians, hotel guards and government soldiers.”
Al-Shabaab spokesman Sheik Ali Mahamud Rage said in an e-mailed statement that some of its fighters had died in the attack, while those remaining had left the hotel, and were threatening more violence.
Al-Shabaab military operations spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab said they had targeted only government officials and spared civilians.
Journalists and paramedics were barred from entering the hotel grounds yesterday and were only allowed to watch from its gate.
A Reuters photographer said the siege seemed to have subsided, with security forces searching the rooms for fighters and booby traps, while others carried bodies from the scene.
Streets surrounding the hotel were sealed off by government and African Union peacekeeping troops.
An offensive launched last year by African Union forces along with the Somalian armed forces has driven al-Shabaab out of its strongholds in central and southern Somalia, while a series of US drone strikes have killed some of its top leaders.
In February, al-Shabaab fighters attacked another hotel in Mogadishu, killing at least 25.
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