At least eight people were killed Friday when militants attacked a hotel frequented by government officials in the heart of Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, police said.
The bloodshed began when a car packed with explosives blew up at the main gate of the luxury Central Hotel, Mogadishu police Capt. Hassan Abdi told CNN.
This explosion was followed by heavy gunfire, then a second blast — a suicide bombing inside the hotel — as other attackers shot their way in, according to Abdi.
The Central Hotel is a place where government ministers, members of parliament, army officers and other officials often go.
Mohamed Aden, Mogadishu’s deputy mayor, was among those killed, according to officials in Somalia’s Benadir region, which includes Mogadishu.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. But Al-Shabaab, an Islamist extremist group blamed for terrorist acts in Somalia and beyond over the years, is believed to be behind this attack, Abdi said.
Villa Somalia, the East African country’s equivalent of the White House, didn’t express any doubts that Al-Shabaab is behind what it called an attack on lawmakers and citizens after Muslim’s traditional Friday prayers.
The presidential palace tweeted, citing President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, “#AlShabaab are un-Islamic and anti-democracy.”
Al-Shabaab’s history of terror
Since emerging in the mid-2000s, Al-Shabaab has been intent on taking control of Somalia, one of the world’s poorest countries with a gross domestic product per person that ranks 226th out of 228 countries. Its militants have repeatedly targeted Somali officials, soldiers and institutions in the East African nation.
The group’s focus has broadened, however, especially since then-leader Ahmed Godane, announced in 2012 that his followers “will march with (al Qaeda) as loyal soldiers.”
The following year, Al-Shabaab carried out its most high-profile operation yet at the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. Shoppers were gunned down, held hostage and tortured. Four days later, the siege ended with as many as 67 dead and parts of the mall destroyed.
Still, Al-Shabaab has never forgotten its home base of Somalia.
But the Somali government, helped by allies including the United States and African Union, has managed to strike some significant blows against the group, including a 2014 U.S. operation that killed Godane.
But none of these have knocked out Al-Shabaab. It has continued its campaign of violence in attacks such as a suicide blast last month of a Somali army convoy in Mogadishu, the bombing of a bus carrying Kenyan teachers in Galkayo, Somalia, and an attack on an African Union military base.
