Six civilians were killed and 10 wounded in a six-hour siege by Al Shabaab militants at a beachside hotel in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, police said Saturday, adding that three officers also died in the gunfight.
The rebels, affiliated with al Qaeda, have been waging an insurgency against the internationally backed federal government for more than 15 years and have often targeted hotels, which tend to host high-ranking Somali and foreign officials.
"Six civilians were martyred in the attack ... and 10 others were wounded. Three brave members of the security forces were martyred," the Somali Police Force said in a statement, adding that 84 people were rescued from the premises.
The assault, for which Al Shabaab claimed responsibility, began just before 8pm (1700 GMT) on Friday when seven attackers stormed the Pearl Beach hotel, a popular spot at Lido beach along Mogadishu's coastline.
The attack ended at around 2am (2300 GMT), police said, after a fierce gunfight between security forces and the militants, all of whom were killed during the battle.
Witnesses reported hearing gunfire and explosions at the hotel.
"I was near the Pearl Beach restaurant when (a) heavy explosion occurred in front of the building," witness Abdirahim Ali told AFP.
"I have managed to flee but there was heavy gunfire afterwards and the security forces rushed to the area."
Yaasin Nur was at the restaurant and told AFP it was "full of people as it was recently renovated".
"I'm worried because there are several of my colleagues who went there and two of them are not responding to their phones," he said.
Several ambulances were also parked nearby, an AFP journalist saw.
Al Shabaab has been driven out of Somalia's main towns and cities but retains power in large swathes of rural areas, and continues to carry out attacks against security and civilian targets, including in the capital.
In August 2020, Al Shabaab launched a large-scale attack on the Elite, another hotel at Lido beach popular with officials, killing 10 civilians and a police officer.
It took security forces four hours to regain control over the site in that attack.
'All-out war'
The latest attack at Lido beach highlights the endemic security problems in the Horn of Africa country as it struggles to emerge from decades of conflict and natural disasters.
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.
The attack raised serious questions about the security forces, who failed to protect a heavily guarded administrative district.
In October 2022, 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 in an attack on an African Union base in the southern town of Bulo Marer last month.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP)
