At least 17 people were killed when Islamist militants launched a car bomb and gun attack on a busy hotel and adjacent restaurant in the Somali capital, a police officer said on Thursday.
A car driven by a suicide bomber rammed into the Posh Hotel in south Mogadishu on Wednesday evening before gunmen rushed into Pizza House, an adjacent restaurant, and took 20 people hostage. Posh Hotel is the only venue with a discotheque in the capital.
District police chief Abdi Bashir told Reuters Somali security forces took back control of the restaurant at midnight after the gunmen had held hostages inside for several hours. Five of the gunmen were killed, Bashir said.
“We are in control of the hotel but it was mostly destroyed by the suicide bomber,” he told Reuters by phone.
Two of the gunmen were shot dead and 10 hostages were rescued but five other attackers were thought to remain inside, cutting off electricity to complicate security forces’ efforts to end the siege, said Captain Mohamed Hussein, who reported heavy gunfire.
Most of the victims were young men who had been entering the Pizza House when the vehicle exploded, Hussein said.
An ambulance driver said early on Thursday that they had carried 17 bodies and 26 wounded people. Police said the dead included a Syrian man.
The gunmen “were dressed in military uniforms. They forced those fleeing the site to go inside” the restaurant, a witness told the Associated Press.
Wednesday night’s blast largely destroyed the restaurant’s facade and sparked a fire. Al-Shabab claimed to have attacked the neighbouring Posh Treats restaurant, which is frequented by the city’s elite and was damaged in the blast. Security officials said it was actually the Pizza House that was targeted.
Security forces rescued Asian, Ethiopian, Kenyan and other workers at Posh Treats as the attack continued, Hussein said.
The Somalia-based al-Shabab often targets high-profile areas of Mogadishu, including hotels, military checkpoints and areas near the presidential palace. It has vowed to step up attacks after the recently elected government launched a new military offensive against it.
Al-Shabab in 2016 became the deadliest Islamist extremist group in Africa, with more than 4,200 people killed in 2016, according to the Washington-based Africa Center for Strategic Studies