According to the officer Abduqadir Hasan, who spoke to AFP, there is an exchange of fire between the security forces and the Islamists who have taken refuge inside the hotel.
Gunfire and explosions can be heard from the Hayat Hotel in Mogadishu after the attack launched by the Islamist Shebaab, witnesses and security sources said.
According to the officer Abduqadir Hasan, who spoke to AFP, there is an exchange of fire between the security forces and the Islamists who have taken refuge inside the hotel.
“There was a huge explosion minutes before the attackers forced their way into the hotel,” Hassan said. “We don’t have details yet, but there are casualties and the security forces are dealing with the enemy,” he added.
Witnesses said a second explosion followed minutes after the first, injuring or killing rescue workers, police and civilians who rushed to the hotel to help the victims.
“The area is cordoned off, there is an exchange of fire,” a witness said.
Al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack in a terse statement on an Islamist-affiliated friend website.
The Shebab were driven out of Mogadishu and Somalia’s other major cities in 2011 but retain significant influence in rural areas. In recent months they have intensified their attacks. On Wednesday the US military announced that it had killed in an airstrike 13 Shebab members who had attacked Somali regular army soldiers in an isolated area of ​​the country, near Tintaan, about 300 kilometers north of Mogadishu. In recent weeks the US has launched several such airstrikes. At the same time, Shebab launched attacks on the border between Somalia and Ethiopia, raising concerns about border stability.
Somalia’s new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, said last month that a military approach was not enough to end Shebaab, but noted that his government would only negotiate with the Islamists when it deemed appropriate. In early August, Prime Minister Hamza Abdi Barre announced that he had appointed a former Shebab official, Mukhtar Robow, or Abu Mansour, who defected in 2017 from the organization he co-founded, as minister of religious affairs.
RES-EMP
Read the News today and get the latest news. Follow us on Google News and be the first to learn all the news from Skai.gr.
