Somalia: Shebabs claim attack on Elite hotel in Mogadishu

4 min

Somali Shebab jihadists on Sunday launched a major attack on a notorious hotel in Mogadishu, killing at least five people, including a government official.

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The attack began with the explosion of a car bomb near the Elite Hotel on Lido beach, frequented by Somali leaders, then armed men entered the establishment where gunshots were heard. "  There was the explosion of a car bomb targeting the Elite hotel on the Lido beach" and "there are major gunshots inside the hotel,  " told AFP Adan Ibrahim, police officer in the area.

Witnesses confirmed that the attack on the Elite Hotel, located on Lido Beach in the capital Mogadishu, started with a loud explosion and that people were subsequently running from the area of ​​the establishment where gunshots were shot. fire were heard.

"  The explosion was very strong and I saw smoke in the area, it is chaos and people are fleeing the surrounding buildings  ", according to one of these witnesses quoted by AFP.

On Sunday evening, security forces attempted to take back control of the hotel.

"  There are still sporadic shootings in the hotel, and according to the first information received, there are 5 dead and more than 10 injured,  " according to a government security official told AFP. The death toll may increase further because the explosion of the car bomb which preceded the attack on the establishment by armed men "  was massive  " and there are "hostages in the hotel", it said. same source. A private company, Aamin Ambulance, put the number of injured at at least 28.

The shebabs claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement to SITE, a watchdog group for Islamist websites, saying their "  martyrs  " had "  taken control of the hotel  " and that they had inflicted "  heavy losses  " on people who were there.

Among the dead is at least one senior information minister, Abdirasak Abdi, according to one of his colleagues, Hussein Ali.

Driven from the Somali capital in 2011, the shebabs then lost most of their bastions. But they still control vast rural areas from where they carry out guerrilla operations and suicide attacks, including in the capital, against government, security or civilian objectives.

On Monday August 10, at least four people were killed in crossfire inside Mogadishu central prison after prisoners managed to seize weapons held by their guards. All of the prisoners involved in the incident were radical Shebab Islamists, some of whom were serving life sentences, a police official said on condition of anonymity.

Hotels have long been the target of shebabs

In February 2019, an attack lasting nearly 24 hours left at least 20 dead in Mogadishu. A month earlier, the attack on a luxury hotel in Nairobi killed 21 people and demonstrated the shebabs' ability to act outside Somali borders. Their last massive action in Mogadishu dates back to December 2019, when a car bomb explosion killed 81 people, mostly civilians.

In their demand for Sunday's attack, the shebabs point out that the Elite hotel "  is inhabited by a large number of government officials  ".

Affiliated with Al-Qaeda, the Shebabs swore the loss of the Somali government, supported by the international community and by the 20,000 men of the African Union force in Somalia (Amisom).

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