MOGADISHU —
Somali security forces on Monday ended an
hours-long siege by Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents who killed eight civilians after
storming a prominent hotel in the capital Mogadishu, the police said.
اضافة اعلان
Al-Shabaab militants attacked the Villa Rose, a
hotel popular with politicians and government officials, in a hail of bullets
and explosions at around 8pm on Sunday.
Around 21 hours later, national police spokesman
Sadik Dudishe told reporters that “the clearance operation in the Villa Rose
hotel has ended.”
Terrorists “killed eight civilians who stayed in the
hotel and the security forces succeeded in rescuing about 60 civilians, no one
among the civilians was wounded,” he added.
One member of the security forces also died in the
attack, he said.
“There were about six attackers involved — five of
them were shot and killed by the security forces and one of them detonated
himself.”
The authorities have given no details about the
identities of the casualties.
The heavily-guarded Villa Rose is located in a
fortified area of the capital a few blocks from the office of President Hassan
Sheikh Mohamud.
Its website describes the hotel as the “most secure
lodging arrangement in Mogadishu” with metal detectors and a high perimeter
wall.
Al-Shabaab, which has been trying to overthrow
Somalia’s central government for 15 years, claimed responsibility for the
attack.
On October 29, two cars packed with explosives blew
up minutes apart in Mogadishu followed by gunfire, killing at least 121 people
and wounding 333 others.
It was the deadliest attack in the fragile Horn of
Africa nation in five years.
At least 21 people were killed in a siege of a
Mogadishu hotel in August that lasted 30 hours before security forces were able
to overpower the militants inside.
Closely guarded zone
The latest hotel siege has
raised questions as to how the militants managed to reach the closely guarded
heart of Mogadishu’s administrative district undetected.
Armed checkpoints block roads into the area, which
also hosts a detention facility for high-value terror suspects overseen by the
National Intelligence and Security Agency.
Somalia’s environment minister, Adam Aw Hirsi, who
lives in the Villa Rose, said the attack was not a demonstration of an
“emboldened” Al-Shabaab.
“To the contrary, the desperate move shows that the
terror kingpins running for dear life are throwing their last kicks. We’ll not
let up the war,” he posted on Twitter.
The UN said earlier this month that at least 613
civilians had been killed and 948 wounded in violence this year in
Somalia,
mostly caused by improvised explosive devices attributed to Al-Shabaab.
The figures were the highest since 2017 and a rise
of more than 30 percent from last year.
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