Death toll in Somali Islamist attack at least 14, police says

Somalia’s Internal Security minister Abdirizak Omar Mohamed said the attackers targeted the SYL hotel, which is situated very close to Villa Somalia, the presidential palace in Mogadishu.

At the scene of the hotel blast Saturday, an elderly Somali woman raised her hands in grief, shouting “God have mercy on him” as she looked at the wreckage of her son’s auto which was near the truck bomb.

The first blast, at the hotel, sent a loud echo across the city, shattering windows and ripping the roofs off many nearby buildings.

Three more bodies were pulled out from houses damaged by the massive vehicle bombs near the SYL hotel.

A police official Capt. Mohamed Hussein said that a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into the SYL hotel’s entrance on Friday evening, and that some gunmen entered the premises after an exchange of gunfire with hotel guards.

Police Major Ahmed Abdullahi told Reuters that the latest attack killed five members of the security forces and nine civilians, while 30 others were injured.

The wounded were taken to the Medina Hospital in Mogadishu, where Dr. Muhammad Sheikh said the auto bomb had caused most casualties.

At least 21 people have been killed and many others wounded in two attacks launched by Al-Shabaab militants.

Al Shabaab has been weakened considerably by African Union troops and the Somali army, losing swathes of territory in the south of the country, but it has been carrying hit-and-run style attacks to show it has not been vanquished.