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Destroyed windows in the attacked hotel:

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Farah Abdi Warsameh / dpa

According to state figures, nine people have been killed in an attack by the radical Islamic Shabaab militia on a posh restaurant in the Somali capital Mogadishu. Among them were six civilians and three soldiers, police said on Saturday. The emergency services also spoke of at least 20 injured. According to the police, 84 civilians were rescued by the security forces.

Initially, there was no official information on the fate of the Islamist rebels. The official Sonna news agency reported that all attackers had been "neutralized." Security forces had ended the six-hour siege of the hotel "Pearl Beach" on Saturday night by shooting the rebels, the broadcaster SNTV reported.

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Eyewitnesses reported an explosion at the beginning of the attack on the popular "Pearl" restaurant in the beach hotel, which was followed by gunfire. The al-Qaeda-allied Shabaab militia claimed responsibility for the attack early Friday night.

The Islamists have been trying to overthrow the government in the East African state since 2006 and have repeatedly attacked hotels and other facilities in Mogadishu. Shabaab controls large parts of Somalia, but was pushed back last year by army counteroffensives. However, the extremists remain capable of carrying out heavy attacks on government, commercial and military targets. At the end of May, their fighters attacked a base of Ugandan peacekeepers 130 kilometers southwest of Mogadishu, killing 54 soldiers.

Children die from mortar shell

Due to years of fighting, the security situation in Somalia is tense. According to state media, 27 people were killed in the explosion of an old mortar shell in the south of the country on Friday. Most of the fatalities were children. 53 other people were injured.

The children were playing with the grenade when it detonated, deputy district chief Abdi Ahmed told reporters. "We are asking the government and aid agencies to clear mines and shells from the area," Ahmed said.

In a report to the UN Security Council in February, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said 2022 was the year with the highest number of civilians killed in Somalia since 2017. The bloodiest attack in the country's history was carried out in October 2017, when 512 people were killed in a truck explosion and around 300 others were injured. The authorities had also blamed the Shabaab militia.

Reuters/AFP