At least 30 people died in an attack on a Somali Hotel Saturday afternoon. Al-Shabaab, a Somali militant group that pledged allegiance to the terrorist organization Al Qaeda in 2012 is suspected have orchestrated the attack in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia.
Mogadishu is a regular target for the militant group, which is currently waging a volatile battle against the government. Police say that the truck bomb attack on the hotel was a pronged with blast occurring first at the gates when the large, heavy motor vehicle, a lorry, exploded there, then four armed gunmen began shooting civilians and security when they gained entrance to the building, reported Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow.
A gun fight took place in and outside of the hotel.
Safari Hotel is not assumed to be the intended target of the attack. That being said, the motivation of the group to attack is unclear seeing as the attack is not a frequented by government workers and the foreign ministry is located nearby.
Witnesses and survivors of the explosion called the bomb the biggest blast they’d ever witnessed.
“This was very horrible,” witness Ismail Yusuf told AFP news agency.”The bomb went off alongside the busy road and left many people dead. I saw several dead bodies strewn about but could not count them.”
The blast that occurred in the K5 Junction, an busy metropolitan area home to many government offices and local businesses, destroyed several building and set dozens of vehicles on fire, reports Al Jazeera. A police officer in the area said he expects death tolls to rise as people begin to be discovered under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
A second attack, a car bomb, was orchestrated later in the day in Madina, Somalia. Two civilians were killed. Al-Shabaab is believed to be responsible for that attack as well. Adow said, the group has been focused on attacking the area ever since they lost control of the capital in 2011.
BBCWorld News was used as a reference in this story.
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