6 dead in al-Shabab bomb attack at Somali hotel
Print Edition
AT least six people died yesterday when Somalia’s al-Shabab Islamist militant group drove a car packed with explosives into the gate of a hotel in Somali capital Mogadishu that houses diplomatic missions and is frequented by government officials and international workers.
The diplomatic missions of both China and Qatar are based in the hotel.
“We have seen around six people killed, most of them hotel security guards,” said government security officer Mohamed Jama.
The huge explosion shook the area, sending a plume of smoke into the air.
Blood and pieces of flesh were spattered around the entrance to the Jazeera hotel. The wreckage of four cars was nearby.
Al-Shabab, which said it was behind the blast, frequently launches bomb and gun attacks in the capital in its bid to topple Somalia’s Western-backed government. The nation is trying to rebuild after two decades of conflict and chaos.
“It is a response to attacks and helicopter bombing against al-Shabab by AMISOM and the Somali government,” said Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabab’s military operations spokesman.
AMISOM, the African Union’s force in Somalia, has been battling the Islamist rebels with the Somali army.
Al-Shabab has been pushed into increasingly smaller pockets of territory by a military offensive this year.
Local resident Abdihakim Ainte, a political analyst, was near the area when the bomb exploded and described a “huge blast” that smashed a window in his house.
He said the hotel, which had been attacked several times in the past by Islamist gunmen, had been “torn apart” by the blast.
Photographs posted on social media showed one side of the multi-story hotel shredded by the explosion.
Mohamed Moalim was in the hotel when the bomb exploded. “It was a truck loaded with explosives — and the biggest ever (blast) around this area,” he said.
In two attacks on Saturday, Al-Shabab killed a lawmaker, his bodyguard and an official from the prime minister’s office.
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