Somalia's deputy prime minister hurt in deadly suicide bombing
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Version 0 of 1. Police say at least11 people have been killed and Somalia’s deputy prime minister injured in a suicide bomb attack on a hotel near the presidential palace. One attacker rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into the gate of the hotel in the capital, Mogadishu, and another suicide bomber then entered the hotel and blew himself up, Capt Muhammad Hussein told Associated Press. Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack, according to the group’s radio station, Andulus. “The building was badly hit, the explosion was very big, and I saw the bodies of 11 people carried away,” police officer Abulrahman Ali told Agence France-Presse. “There were very many wounded people too, many of them seriously.” An official at the palace said at least 25 people had been killed and that the toll was expected to rise due to the severity of injuries among the wounded. AP 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. The deputy prime minister, Mohamed Omar Arte, was rushed to hospital and was among several other high-ranking government officials at the hotel at the time of the attack, Hussein said. “They don’t care about life, humans and Muslims,” said an elderly woman sobbing beside the dead body of a man outside the hotel. This is the second attack on a hotel in Mogadishu in less than a month. Last month, 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 Erdoğan, who visited the country days later. Despite major setbacks in 2014, al-Shabaab continues to wage a deadly insurgency against Somalia’s government and remains a threat in Somalia and the east African region. |