At least 13 civilians were killed in an attack by radical Al-Shabaab Islamists on a hotel in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, where security forces were still trying to neutralize attackers barricaded inside for more than 24 hours on Saturday evening.
“We are receiving information on five additional victims who have been confirmed dead and the total number of civilians killed by terrorists stands at 13,” security official Mohamed Abdikadir told AFP. time reports eight dead.
The jihadists stormed the popular Hayat hotel on Friday evening, exchanging gunfire with security forces amid a roar of explosions, before taking refuge in a room at the establishment.
“Security forces rescued dozens of civilians, including children, who were trapped in the building,” Abdikadir said, adding that “most people were rescued.” The number of people held at the facility was not known.
The attackers were still entrenched in the hotel on Saturday evening and sporadic gunfire and loud explosions were heard in the area, around which a wide security cordon was established and roads were blocked.
Somali police spokesman Abdifatah Adan Hassan told reporters that an explosion was caused by a suicide bomber.
Witnesses said a second explosion took place a few minutes after the first, causing casualties among rescuers, members of the security forces and civilians who rushed to the hotel after the first explosion.
It is the largest attack in Mogadishu since new Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office in June.
An Islamist group linked to al-Qaeda, Al-Shabaab, which has been engaged in an insurrection against the Somali federal government for 15 years, has claimed responsibility for the attack.
“A group of Al-Shabaab assailants forced their way into the Hayat hotel in Mogadishu, the fighters are firing at random inside the hotel,” the group confirmed in a brief statement on a pro website. -shebab.
Shebab spokesman Abdiaziz Abu-Musab told their station, Radio Andalus, on Saturday that the group still controlled the building and had “inflicted heavy casualties” on security forces.
At least 40 injured
According to a witness, Hayat Ali, three children from the same family, aged 4 to 7, were found by the security forces, in a state of shock, hiding in the hotel toilets.
“I managed to run to a nearby exit, away from the armed men,” said Hussein Ali, who came with his colleagues to the establishment. “The gunmen started shooting, I could hear the shots behind me, but thank God […] we managed to escape. »
But “those who preferred to hide inside the building, including one of my colleagues, died,” he added.
The United States, Turkey and the United Kingdom, allies of Somalia, as well as the East African organization IGAD, of which Somalia is a member, have strongly condemned the attack.
A rain of shells also fell on Saturday in another district of the capital, Hamar Jajab, located by the sea, injuring 20 including children, district commissioner Mucawiye Muddey told AFP.
“Among those seriously injured are a young bride and her husband, as well as an entire family”, the two parents and their three children, he said. The attack was not immediately claimed.
According to the director of Mogadishu’s main hospital, Dr Mohamed Abdirahman Jama, at least 40 people were being treated after being injured in the two weekend attacks.
The Shebab were driven out of the main cities of the country, including Mogadishu in 2011, but they remain established in vast rural areas. In recent months, they have intensified their attacks.
On Wednesday, the American army announced that it had killed in an airstrike 13 Shebab militiamen who were attacking soldiers of the Somali regular forces in a remote area of this country in the Horn of Africa.
In May, US President Joe Biden decided to re-establish a military presence in Somalia to fight the Shebab there, approving a request from the Pentagon which deemed the rotation system decided by his predecessor Donald Trump at the end too risky and ineffective. of his mandate.
Somalia’s new president Hassan Sheikh Mohamoud said last month that a military approach is insufficient to end the violent Al-Shabaab insurgency.
At the beginning of August, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre announced the appointment of a former leader of the radical Islamist Al-Shabaab, who became a politician, as Minister of Religious Affairs. Muktar Robow, alias Abu Mansour, publicly defected in August 2017 from the movement he helped found.