At least four people were killed in an attack on a hotel in Kismayo in southern Somalia, al-Shabaab Islamists, police and a witness said on Sunday.
The port city is the latest to be hit in recent months by bloody attacks by the al-Qaeda-linked group, which has mainly targeted the capital Mogadishu and central Somalia.
Sunday’s attack began at 12:45 p.m. (0945 GMT) when a booby-trapped car rammed the entrance of the Tawakal Hotel.
“Another civilian body was discovered, accounting for four of the civilian casualties we have confirmed to date,” Police Officer Abdullahi Ismail said, updating the number from three previously given by officials.
“This is not a government goal,” Ismail said. “It’s just an ordinary hotel frequented by civilians.”
When the security forces tried to break the siege, they killed “two of the attackers,” he added. “They are evacuating the hotel building and will soon announce that the siege is over.”
Witness Abdikarin Yare told AFP that the forces “managed to storm the main building and we can still hear gunfire,” adding, “Two bodies of the attackers were dragged out.”
Another witness, Farhan Hassan, who was outside the hotel at the time of the attack, said “a suicide bomber drove a vehicle into the hotel’s entrance before the gunmen entered the building.”
Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack and said members of the federal government of Jubaland, where Kismayo is located, met at the hotel at the time.
– ‘Total war’ –
Al-Shabaab has been trying to overthrow the government for more than 15 years and regularly attacks civilian and military targets.
Kismayo was once an al-Shabaab stronghold before it was taken over by local militias backed by Kenyan forces in 2012.
In August, it launched a 30-hour gun and bomb attack on the popular Hayat Hotel in Mogadishu, killing 21 and wounding 117.
In 2019, the group carried out a similar attack on a hotel in Kismayo, killing 26 and injuring 56.
Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who was elected in May, vowed to wage an “uncompromising war” on the Islamists after the August siege.
In September, he urged citizens to stay away from jihadist-controlled areas, saying the armed forces and tribal militias would step up offensives against them.
A joint US-Somalia drone strike on October 1 killed one of the militants’ senior commanders.
Just hours after his death was announced, a triple bomb blast killed at least 30 people in the southern town of Beledweyne.
In addition to the violence, Somalia – like its neighbors in the Horn of Africa – is being hit by the worst drought in more than 40 years. Four failed rainy seasons have wiped out livestock and crops.
About 7.8 million Somalis – almost half the population – have been affected by the drought and 213,000 people are on the brink of starvation as a result, according to the United Nations
