At least 20 people were killed and more than a dozen were wounded at a beachside restaurant and hotel in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.
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The situation became contained after an eight hour stand-off between local security forces and militants, in which Somali special forces went from room to room pursuing the al-Shabaab gunmen, who were holed up inside the restaurant.
“More and more security forces are now going into the restaurant”.
At least three people have died during a terror attack on a restaurant in the Somali capital.
Ambulance workers stand by near the Lido beach where gunmen exploded a vehicle bomb and opened fire at a restaurant in Mogadishu, Somalia on Thursday.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but Shabaab insurgents have carried out a string of similar bombings in the past.
Hussein, the police official, said security forces rescued many people who had been trapped. The Kenyan government has given no death toll, saying broadly that there were some fatalities. The spokesman said the attack was ongoing.
“The mujahedeen fighters targeted the Lido Beach”, the militants said on the group’s Radio Andalus, calling it a “major operation against the enemy of Allah”.
“It is believed Mwalimu Janow, the leader of (an al Shabaab) brigade, who led this attack, was killed”, Mwathethe told reporters.
Abdirahman Halane was close to the restaurant when the gunmen attacked, and said some of those killed were hit by an explosion as they tried to flee.
The attack is the latest in a series of strikes on “soft targets” by the extremist group, which aims to impose its interpretation of Islamic law on Somalia.
“This is merely propaganda meant to soothe Kenyans’ minds after the recent shocking massacre of Kenyan troops”, Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab’s military spokesman, told Reuters.
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And last fall, the Islamist militant group claimed responsibility for blasts and gunfire at Mogadishu’s popular Sahafi Hotel.
