Al Qaida terrorists kill six civilians and wound 10 at Mogadishu beachside hotel

Al Qaida terrorists kill six civilians and wound 10 in deadly six-hour siege at Mogadishu beachside hotel

Seven Al-Shabaab terrorists attacked Pearl Beach Hotel, Mogadishu, Somalia
The skirmish ended at 2am Saturday after six-hour shootout with security forces

By Alexander Butler and Afp

Published: 10:46 BST, 10 June 2023 | Updated: 10:50 BST, 10 June 2023

Al Qaeda-linked jihadists have killed six civilians and wounded ten in a six-hour siege at a beachside hotel in Somalia, police said.

Seven Al-Shabaab militants launched the attack on Pearl Beach Hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, just before 8pm on Friday.

The skirmish ended at around 2am after a shootout between security forces and the militants, according to the Somali Police Force.

It comes as part of a 15-year-long Islamist insurgency against Somalia’s federal government, which often targets hotels with high-ranking Somali and foreign officials.

The Somali Police Force said: ‘Six civilians were martyred in the attack and ten others were wounded.

Seven Al-Shabaab militants launched the attack on Pearl Beach Hotel (pictured) in Mogadishu, Somalia, just before 8pm on Friday

The skirmish ended at around 2am after a shootout between security forces and the militants, according to the Somali Police Force

‘Three brave members of the security forces were martyred during the rescue operation.

‘The security forces managed to rescue 84 people including women and children and elderly people.’

One witness said he was worried about his colleagues because they are ‘not responding to their phones’ after the shootout.

And others added they heard ‘heavy’ explosions and gunfire throughout the beachside hotel.

Witness Abdirahim Ali said: ‘I was near the Pearl Beach restaurant when a heavy explosion occurred in front of the building.

‘I have managed to flee but there was heavy gunfire afterwards and the security forces rushed to the area.’

Pictured: the damaged Pearl Beach Hotel after the terrorist attack in Mogadishu, Somalia

Pictured: residents stand near the damage at Pearl Beach Hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Saturday

Pictured: an ambulance carries victims of the attack away from the hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia

Witness Yaasin Nur was at the restaurant and said it was ‘full of people as it was recently renovated’.

He said: ‘I’m worried because there are several of my colleagues who went there and two of them are not responding to their phones.’

At least 613 civilians had been killed and 948 injured in violence in Somalia last year, mostly caused by improvised explosive devices attributed to Al-Shabaab, according to the UN.

The figures were the highest since 2017 and an increase of more than 30 per cent from the previous year.

‘All out war’: the ongoing battle between Al-Shabaab and the Somali Government

The attack at Lido beach underscored the endemic security problems in the Horn of Africa country as it struggles to emerge from decades of conflict and natural disasters.

Al-Shabaab, which was driven out of Somalia’s main towns and cities by an African Union force, still controls large swathes of countryside and continues to carry out attacks against security and civilian targets, including in the capital.

Last year, Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud launched an ‘all-out war’ against Al-Shabaab, rallying Somalis to help flush out members of the jihadist group he described as ‘bedbugs’.

His pledge came after 21 people were killed and 117 others were wounded in an Al-Shabaab siege on a Mogadishu hotel in August 2022 that lasted 30 hours.

That attack raised serious questions about the security forces, who failed to protect a heavily guarded administrative district.

Two months later, twin car bombings in Mogadishu killed 121 people and injured 333 in the country’s deadliest attack in five years.

The army and militias known as ‘macawisley’ have in recent months retaken swathes of territory in the centre of the country in an operation backed by the African Union mission ATMIS and US air strikes.

But Al-Shabaab fighters killed 54 Ugandan peacekeepers last month in an attack on an African Union base in the southern town of Bulo Marer.

In August 2020, Al-Shabaab launched a large-scale attack on the Elite, another hotel at Lido beach popular with officials, killing ten civilians and a police officer.

It took security forces four hours to regain control of the site in that attack.

Source: AFP

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