Militants storm Somali hotel
Car bombing, gunfire leave 23 people dead, police say
MOGADISHU, Somalia — A suicide car bomb exploded outside a popular hotel in Somalia’s capital Saturday, killing at least 23 people and wounding more than 30, police said. Two more blasts were heard in the area minutes later, and gunfire could be heard inside the building.
Speaking by telephone from the scene, Capt. Mohamed Hussein said 30 people, including a government minister, were rescued from the Nasa-Hablod hotel as heavy gunfire continued in the standoff between extremists and security forces.
Three of the five attackers were killed, Hussein said. The others hurled grenades and cut off the building’s electricity as night fell.
Saturday’s blasts came two weeks after more than 350 people were killed in a truck bombing on a busy Mogadishu street in the country’s worst-ever attack.
Al-Shabab, an Islamic extremist group, quickly claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack and said its fighters were inside the hotel.
As night fell, sporadic gunfire could be heard as soldiers responded.
A senior Somali police colonel, a former lawmaker and a former government minister were among the dead, Hussein said. Footage from the scene showed twisted vehicles and nearby buildings with only walls left standing.
Mohamed Dek Haji said he survived the bombing as he walked beside a parked car that was largely destroyed by the explosion.
He said he saw at least three armed men in military uniforms running toward the hotel after the suicide bombing at its gate.
“I think they were alShabab fighters who were trying to storm the hotel,” he said, lying on a hospital bed.
He suffered injuries on his shoulder and skull from flying glass.
Witnesses in previous attacks have said al-Shabab fighters disguised themselves by wearing military uniforms.
Al-Shabab often targets high-profile areas of Mogadishu. It has not commented on the attack two weeks ago; experts have said the death toll was so high that the group hesitated to further anger Somali citizens as it pursues its insurgency.
Since the blast two weeks ago, President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed has visited regional countries to seek more support for the fight against the extremist group, vowing a “state of war.” He also faces the challenge of pulling together regional powers inside his long-fractured country, where the federal government is only now trying to assert itself beyond Mogadishu and other major cities.
A 22,000-member multinational African Union force in Somalia is expected to withdraw its forces and hand over the country’s security to the Somali military by the end of 2020. U.S. military officials and others in recent months have expressed concern that Somali forces are not yet ready.
The U.S. military also has stepped up military efforts against al-Shabab this year in Somalia, carrying out nearly 20 drone strikes, as the global war on extremism moves deeper into the African continent.