Somali forces have ended the siege at a hotel in the capital Mogadishu after it was overrun by Islamic extremist gunmen in one of the most deadly and high-profile attacks in recent years.
According to police and witnesses, at least 20 people are believed to have been killed and 40 wounded during the attack, which has been claimed by the al-Qaida-linked group al-Shabaab.
Detonations sent huge plumes of smoke over Mogadishu, and gunfire reverberated around the city. Large sections of the Hayat hotel were destroyed by the fighting, witnesses said.
It took around 30 hours before it was reported that the authorities had retaken the hotel at around midnight, local time, on Saturday. “The security forces have ended the siege now and the gunmen are dead, we’ve had no incoming gunfire from the building in the past hour,” a security commander, speaking anonymously, told Agence France-Presse.
The official gave no information about the total number of casualties, or how many al-Shabaab fighters had been killed, adding that the government would give a press briefing on Sunday morning.
The attack is the biggest since Somalia’s new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, was elected in May after many months of political instability. It comes after an increase in military operations against al-Shabaab and amid a severe humanitarian crisis, which threatens millions with famine.
Al-Shabaab has been waging a deadly insurgency against Somalia’s fragile central government for about 15 years and has become one of al-Qaida’s most effective affiliates since swearing allegiance to its then leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2011. Al-Zawahiri was killed by a US drone strike in Kabul earlier this month.
President Biden ordered US special forces back into the unstable east African country earlier this year, reversing a decision by his predecessor. Somali troops have gone on the offensive in recent weeks but have made limited gains.
In a brief statement on a pro-Shabaab website, the group claimed that their attackers had “forcibly entered Hotel Hayat in Mogadishu” and were “carrying out random shooting inside the hotel”.
Al-Shabaab has targeted hotels for many years. Some establishments are attacked as symbols of practices seen as unIslamic or simply because they are vulnerable. Others fail to pay off the group, which raises millions of dollars through “taxes” on businesses across Somalia.
Dozens of people had gathered outside the Hayat hotel, a popular spot frequented by government officials and ordinary Somalis, hoping to discover the fate of loved ones caught up inside.
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Police spokesperson Abdifatah Adan Hassan had told reporters late on Friday that the initial blast was caused by a suicide bomber who attacked with at least three gunmen.
Witnesses said a second blast occurred just a few minutes later, inflicting casualties on rescuers and members of the security forces and civilians who rushed to the scene after the first explosion.
“We have been looking for a relative of mine who was trapped inside the hotel, she was confirmed dead together with six other people – two of them I know,” witness Muudey Ali said.
Earlier this week, the US announced that its forces had killed 13 al-Shabaab fighters in an airstrike as the Islamist militants were attacking Somali forces.
The strike took place near Teedaan, in Hiraan province, in support of Somali troops fighting militants.
Mohamud said last month that ending al-Shabaab’s insurgency required more than a military approach but that his government would negotiate with the group only when the time was right.
Al-Shabaab fighters were driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 by an African Union force, but the group still controls much of the countryside where it can operate with relative impunity.
The ongoing conflict has disrupted relief efforts. More than 755,000 people have been internally displaced in Somalia because of the severe drought this year, bringing the total figure to 1 million people since January 2021 when the drought began, according to displacement figures released by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
Aid officials say large numbers of Somalis have been trying to flee al-Shabaab-run zones to reach the relative safety of displacement centres on the outskirts of major towns, suggesting that the group has been unable to provide relief from the drought or unwilling to allow NGOs to work freely.
The Horn of Africa nation has been mired in chaos since the fall of the military regime of president Siad Barre in 1991. His ousting was followed by a civil war and the ascendancy of a series of Islamist movements. Al-Shabaab began as more radical breakaway faction of a wider movement but has gone on to become one of the most tenacious extremist organisations in the world.
The deadliest attack in Somalia occurred in October 2017 when a truck packed with explosives blew up in a bustling commercial district of Mogadishu, killing 512 people.