Somalia police report blast, gunfire at Mogadishu hotel
Posted Aug 16, 2020 09:07:44 AM.
Last Updated Aug 16, 2020 09:14:09 AM.
MOGADISHU, Somalia — A Somali police officer says a car bomb went off at a beachside hotel in Mogadishu, the capital, followed by heavy gunfire.
Capt. Mohamed Hussein said that a burst of gunfire could be heard on Sunday inside the Elite Hotel, a newly built beachside hotel often frequented by young people and the city’s elite.
There was no immediate word on casualties from the attack which shattered a period of calm of a few months following a spate of bomb attacks earlier this year. Somalia’s homegrown Islamic extremist rebels, al-Shabab, who are allied to al-Qaida, often carry out such attacks in the country’s capital.
Abdi Guled, The Associated Press