Somali security forces say they have ended a 12-hour siege on a hotel in the capital Mogadishu by killing all five gunmen involved.Three soldiers were killed and 27 others were injured, including three members of parliament and a government spokesperson.
The jihadist group al-Shabaab attacked the Sil Hotel, popular with government officials, on Thursday night.The Somali government has not yet commented on the ordeal.
The state broadcaster posted on X, formerly known as Twitter and said “security forces have neutralized all terrorists”.
At least two separate explosions were reported before the militants stormed the hotel.
It is not clear how the gunmen managed to access the hotel which is near the highly guarded presidential palace.
Al-Shabab said earlier that fighters were in control of the hotel and were shooting “workers and officers of the… government”.
Several gunmen broke into the building after destroying the surrounding walls with heavy explosions,” security officials said. officials told AFP.”We don’t know how many victims there were, but there were a lot of people inside when the attack started,” said Hassan Nour, who escaped by climbing the wall.
After the attack, police were seen arriving and a gunfight began with the militants.
The number of attacks has fallen in recent weeks as security has been stepped up as the government ramps up its military offensive against Islamic extremists.
Al-Shabaab controls much of southern and central Somalia.
The group has ties to al-Qaeda and has waged a brutal insurgency against Somalia’s UN-backed government for nearly two decades.
Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud met with defence officials on Thursday to plan ways to regain lost territory, Somalia’s state news agency Sonna reported.
A terrorist group banned by countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States. The United States intervened militarily to fight the group.
The fighter jets are known to have targeted hotels, including the Sill Hotel in 2019.
In 2022, the group attacked the Villa Reyes hotel in the capital, killing at least 14 people.
Three years before the Hotel Villa Reyes attack, at least 26 people were killed, including a prominent journalist and several foreigners, in an attack on the Hotel Assay in the port of Kismayo, south of Soma.