Seventeen dead in Somalia Al Shabab siege
All five militants who stormed restaurant are killed by police
MOGADISHU // Seventeen people were killed in the night-long siege of a Mogadishu restaurant by Al Shabab extremists that ended yesterday.
All five attackers were killed, according to a senior Somali police office.
Al Shabab claimed responsibility during the siege.
Survivors said they hid under tables and curtains as attackers fired in the restaurant and hunted for patrons.
“They were killing people on the spot,” said Saida Hussein, a university student who survived the attack by hiding behind a large table downstairs.
Another survivor, Aden Karie, was wounded by an attacker who spotted him moving behind a curtain. “He shot at me twice and one bullet struck me in the leg,” said Mr Karie.
The roofs were blown off the restaurant and nearby buildings by the blasts.
The bodies of five girls thought to have been killed by the militants were found in the restaurant, said police.
Inside the building, the body of a Syrian man who worked as a chef at the restaurant lay near the rubble of a blood-spattered and bullet-marked wall.
The attack began on Wednesday when a car bomb exploded at the gate to the restaurant. Gunmen posing as military forces then stormed into the building.
Most of the victims were young men on their way in when the vehicle exploded.
The gunmen “were dressed in military uniforms. They forced those fleeing the site to go inside the restaurant”, witness Nur Yasin said.
Security forces rescued Asian, Ethiopian, Kenyan and other workers as the attack continued.
Al Shabab has vowed to step up attacks after the recently elected government launched a new military offensive against it.
On Sunday, the US military in Africa said it carried out an air strike in southern Somalia that killed extremists at a rebel camp.