At least 19 killed in hotel attack in li capital

No less than 19 people were killed when Islamist militants launched a car bomb and gun attack on a busy hotel and adjacent restaurant in the li capital, a police officer said on Thursday.

A car driven by a suicide bomber rammed into the Posh Hotel in south Mogadishu on Wednesday evening before gunmen rushed into Pizza House, an adjacent restaurant, and took 20 people hostage. Posh Hotel is the only venue with a discotheque in the capital.

District police chief Abdi Bashir told Reuters li security forces took back control of the restaurant at midnight after the gunmen had held hostages inside for several hours. Five of the gunmen were killed, Bashir said.

“We are in control of the hotel but it was mostly destroyed by the suicide bomber,” he told Reuters by phone.

Witnesses said there were bodies lying at the scene on Thursday morning as ambulances came to take them away.

Ahmed Mohamud Adow, the spokesman for the country’s interior ministry, said the dead included a Syrian national who worked at the restaurant. He did not identify the dead Syrian who local residents said worked as a chef at the Pizza House.

Another 27 civilians were taken to hospital with various injuries, ambulance services said. Witnesses said the attack was launched after the Iftar dinner for customers who are fasting for Ramadan. Most of them were still inside relaxing.

The wreckages of three-wheeled scooters caught up in the blast at the hotel, which also housed a massage parlour, lay overturned around the scene.