Islamist gunmen kill 17 in Somalia beach restaurant attack

Map of Somalia locating the capital Mogadishu, site of a deadly restaurant attack on Thursday.

One report said at least three people had died.

Al-Shabaab, a militant group aligned with al Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the assault.

A number of people including journalists, musicians and politicians are reported to have been in the hotel at the time of the attacks.

Al-Shabaab aggressors executed not less than 19 individuals when five shooters exploded a bomb before raging a prevalent ocean side restaurant in the capital Mogadishu.

Police said security forces took control of the restaurant just before dawn Friday and rescued many people trapped inside the restaurant’s hall.

Aunt Halima Hassan tends to Mohamed Abdiqani Kheyre, 3, who survived the restaurant attack but whose mother was killed during the siege, at the Madina hospital in Mogadishu, Somalia, Friday, Jan. 22, 2016.

Lido beach: Sun, surf and… grenades?

The Islamist militants claimed to have captured some Kenyan soldiers belonging to an African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia.

The attack follows an al-Shabab attack on a Kenyan military base in Somalia the week before.

The Council also paid tribute to the response of the Somali security forces to these attacks, and underlined the need to bring perpetrators, organisers, financiers and sponsors of such reprehensible acts of terrorism to justice.

I saw some people jumping from second floor.

In a phone conversation earlier, the boy asked his rescuer to promise him that he would never go back to the Beach View restaurant.

Liido is now left with overturned, soiled chairs and tables, scattered shoes and walls marred by bullets. “This latest atrocity by Al-Shabaab is very deliberately meant to intimidate Somali civilians”, Secretary General special representative Michael Keating said, according to UN News Center.

After the first explosion, gunmen reportedly burst into the restaurant as diners were sitting down for their evening meal.