At least eight civilians have been killed in clashes between al-Shabaab militants who attacked a hotel in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Friday night and security forces trying to eliminate them, a Somali security official said yesterday.
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack.
“The al-Shabaab militant group stormed the Hyatt hotel in Mogadishu,” a brief statement posted on its website said. “Security forces continued to neutralize the terrorists, who were surrounded in a room inside the hotel.”
“Most of the people were saved, but at the moment, at least eight civilian deaths have been confirmed,” he added.
Al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab fighters broke into the Hyatt on Friday evening, firing bullets and grenades.
Abdul Kader added that “security forces rescued dozens of civilians, including children, who were stuck in the building.”
The attackers were still hiding in the hotel early yesterday morning. The rumble of bullets and intermittent explosions could be heard in the area.
Somali police spokesman Abdelfattah Aden Hassan told reporters that the explosion was carried out by a suicide bomber.
Witnesses also reported that a few minutes after the first explosion, a second explosion occurred near the hotel, as a result of which rescuers, law enforcement officers and civilians who rushed to the scene after the first explosion were injured.
This is the biggest attack on Mogadishu since the election of new Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud in May.
On Wednesday, the US military said it had killed 13 al-Shabaab militants who were attacking Somali soldiers in an air raid on the country’s remote area in the Horn of Africa.
