23 (EUROPE PRESS)
At least nine civilians have died and 47 more have been injured in the attack launched this Sunday, and still in progress, by the jihadist organization Al Shabaab against a hotel in the Somali city of Kismayo, as announced by the Somali State Security Minister. of Jubaland, Yusuf Hussein Osman.
Osman has explained that among the deceased there are students. “The culprits were four, a suicide bomber and three militiamen. All of them have died in the operation,” he said, according to the Somali news portal Garowe Online.
State authorities had previously reported the end of the attack on the hotel by “Al Shabaab terrorists” after all the attackers were “neutralized” and the dozens of civilians who had been trapped in the building were rescued. A suicide bomber blew himself up with explosives at the hotel’s access door and later other armed militiamen burst in.
Somali military spokesman Abdiasis Abu Musab and witnesses from the area have told the Somali Times that shots have been heard inside the hotel, where members of the Jubaland regional administration usually work.
Kismayo is the commercial capital of this region in the south of the country, in which Al Shabaab is particularly active despite its expulsion in 2012 by Somali forces.
