Two suicide bombings at Somalia hotel kills at least 4, wounds many

Al Shabab, an Islamic insurgent group, claimed the responsibility for the two suicide bombings carried out at the Somali Central Hotel near the presidential palace on Friday, according to the group's radio station.

|
Feisal Omar/Reuters
Somali security agents are seen outside the Central Hotel after a suicide attack in Somalia's capital Mogadishu February 20, 2015.

One person rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the gate of a hotel in Somalia's capital, and another went through the gates and blew himself up, killing at least four people on Friday, including the deputy mayor and a legislator, officials said.

The country's deputy prime minister was also among those wounded by the bombings at the Central Hotel near the presidential palace, police official Capt. Mohammed Hussein said.

Al Shabab, an Islamic insurgent group, claimed the responsibility for the attack, according to the group's radio station, Andulus.

Somali legislator Omar Ali Nor and Mogadishu's deputy mayor Mohamed Aden are among the dead, said lawmaker Mohamed Ali, who could not give an exact death toll.

"A dark day for our country, the death toll is even much higher than that," Ali said.

Two bloodied bodies were lying outside the hotel in central Mogadishu, as soldiers cordoned off the area and fired bullets into the air to disperse approaching crowds.

Deputy Prime Minister Mohamed Omar Arte was rushed to a hospital, and was among several other high-ranking government officials at the hotel at the time of the attack, Hussein said.

Somalia's president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud condemned the attack on the hotel, saying it would not derail efforts by his government to restore peace to Somalia which is recovering from decades of war.

"We shall continue the anti-terrorism war, this attack makes clear that terrorists don't have any respect for the peaceful religion of Islam by killing innocent Muslims." he said in a statement issued after the attack.

This is the second attack on a hotel in Mogadishu in less than a month. On Jan. 22, three Somali nationals were killed when a suicide car bomber blew himself up at the gate of a hotel housing the advance party of the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who visited the country days later.

Despite major setbacks in 2014, Al Shabab continues to wage a deadly insurgency against Somalia's government and remains a threat in Somalia and the East African region. The group has carried out many attacks in Somalia and in neighboring countries, including Kenya, whose armies are part of the African Union troops bolsteringSomalia's weak U.N.- backed government.

Al-Shabab controlled much of Mogadishu during the years 2007 to 2011, but was pushed out of Somalia's capital and other major cities by African Union forces.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Two suicide bombings at Somalia hotel kills at least 4, wounds many
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/2015/0220/Two-suicide-bombings-at-Somalia-hotel-kills-at-least-4-wounds-many
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe