MOGADISHU – At least 16 people were killed in an attack on Sunday by Islamist group al Shabaab at a seaside hotel in the Somali capital Mogadishu, according to government spokesman Ismail Mukhtar Omar.
The toll includes 11 victims and five attackers, Omar said in a Tweet late Sunday.
“Security forces lost one, 18 people were injured,” Omar said.
Militants stormed the high-end Elite Hotel in Lido Beach, detonated a car bomb and then opened fire with assault rifles, the latest attack by al Shabaab, which has been fighting the central government since 2008.
The hotel is owned by Abdullahi Mohamed Nor, a lawmaker and former finance minister, and is visited by government officials and members of the Somali diaspora.
Dr Abdikadir Abdirahman, director of AAMIN ambulance services, told Reuters on Monday that they had injured at least 43 people in the attack.
Al Shabaab wants to overthrow the central government and establish its own rule based on its own strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law.
Over the years, the group has waged its war through bombings and gun attacks on both military and civilian targets such as hotels and busy crossroads in Mogadishu and across Somalia.
Al Shabaab has also carried out attacks in neighboring Kenya and Uganda in retaliation for its military deployment in Somalia as part of a regional peacekeeping mission.
Somalia has been embroiled in violence since 1991, when clan war leaders overthrew leader Mohamed Siad Barre and then attacked each other.
