Al-Shabab attacks hotel
July 27, 2015
Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has condemned a bomb attack on a Mogadishu hotel on Sunday (26.07.2015), which left at least 15 people dead and nearly two dozens injured.
A suicide bomber rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into the protective walls around the Jazeera Palace, one of Mogadishu's most secured hotels, destroying one side of the six-storey building and several nearby houses. "It was a huge explosion, which rocked the whole city," DW's correspondent Mohammed Odowa said, adding that terrified residents told him it had felt like an earthquake.
The terrorist group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Jazeera Palace hotel houses several diplomatic missions. It is close to the international airport, where the United Nations, Western diplomatic missions and AMISOM, the African Union force in Somalia, are located. "This was an attack on a symbol - the Jazeera Hotel was a place where the international community met their counterparts in Somali politics, business and civil society," President Mohamud said in a statement Monday.
"But I have a message for the terrorists," the president continued. "The Jazeera Palace will be rebuilt and it will soon be back in business. That is how we respond to callous attacks such as this - attacks that, as is so often the case, harm only innocent Somali citizens and our international colleagues who are here to help."
Retaliation for offensive against al-Shabab
Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabab's military operations spokesman, told Reuters news agency that the bombing was "a response to attacks and helicopter bombing against al-Shabab by AMISOM and the Somali government."
Last week, Somali government and AMISOM troops launched a new offensive, dubbed Operation Jubba Corridor, aimed at pushing al-Shabab out of its last strongholds. Since 2007, AMISOM has helped retake towns and territories the group had held for years. US drone strikes have killed some of its senior commanders, including the group's leader Ahmed Godane.
"The terrorists are shaken by the joint military offensive engaged by the Somali and AMISOM troops, and they are desperately targeting innocent civilians," President Mohamud said.
On Saturday, al-Shabab militants killed a member of parliament in Mogadishu. Abdulahi Hussein Mohamud was travelling through the southern district of the city when gunmen opened fire on his vehicle, killing him, his two guards and the driver. In a statement claiming responsibility, the group said it would "continue targeting" lawmakers.
The suicide attack on the hotel came as US President Barack Obama was leaving neighboring Kenya and heading to Ethiopia. Both nations are contributing troops to the African Union force.
Speaking in Nairobi on Saturday, a day before the hotel bombing, Obama said that although al-Shabab had been "weakened," the overall security threat remained. "We have been able to decrease their effective control within Somalia and have weakened those networks operating here in East Africa," the US president said. "That doesn't mean the problem is solved," he added.