MOGADISHU // Islamist militants have shot dead 30 people, including six members of parliament in a suicide attack on a Mogadishu hotel, Somalia's deputy prime minister said. The two militants from the Al Shebab movement, disguised as government security forces, then blew themselves up to avoid arrest after the attack on the hotel, which was crowded with Somali officials. "Thirty people died in this ambush. Six of them are members of the Somali parliament and four are Somali government civil servants," Abdirahman Haji Adan Ibbi told reporters after the deadly rampage at Hotel Mona. "The 20 others are innocent civilians who died in this horrible incident," he added. An official and witnesses told an AFP reporter on the scene that two fighters from Shebab disguised as government security forces smuggled themselves into the hotel and sprayed gunfire on its occupants. "They detonated the suicide vests they were wearing when our forces surrounded the hotel," he said on condition of anonymity.
The attack comes amid two days of fighting started by Somalia's most dangerous militant group, Al Shabab, have killed at least 40 civilians and wounded more than 130 in Mogadishu, said Ali Muse, the head of Mogadishu's ambulance service.
The fighting in Mogadishu began yesterday, soon after a spokesman for Al Shabab declared a "massive war" on what he labelled "invaders", an apparent reference to the 6,000 troops from the African Union that protect and prop up the weak Somali government.
Fighting continued today as the two sides exchanged mortar fire and fighters from Al Shabab fired rocket-propelled grenades, said Ali Muse, head of Mogadishu ambulance services. Most of the bodies collected so far were of women killed in Bakara market in the central Mogadishu, he said. Mr Muse, who only has seven ambulances to cover the entire city, said: "The fighting re-erupted this morning and there is a heavy exchange of artillery fire, the casualties are reaching their highest levels." Colonel Mohammed Omar, a Somali government security officer, said: "Heavy fighting resumed this morning around several frontlines including Holwadag, Hodan and Bondhere area. "Government forces are inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy, we killed more than 15 of their fighters," he claimed, without specifying whether the fighting had caused any casualties among his own ranks.
In the Bakara market area, an Al Shebab stronghold, shops were closed and witnesses said armoured vehicles from the African Union mission (had moved in to support the government's military effort. Abdullahi Hussein, a resident of Mogadishu's northern district of Bondhere, said: "We are trapped inside our houses and we cannot go outside because of the fighting. I can hear the tanks of the African peacekeepers engaging their opponents and firing artillery rounds." Ali Muktar, a Bakara grocer, told AFP: "Bakara market is not open this morning and people are trying to dodge the crossfire. Mortar shells are raining down on the market area and the roads leading to the market are closed."
Somalia's Western-backed government has been battling insurgents, including al Shabab, which the US accuses of having links with al Qa'eda, and Hisbul Islam since 2007. Most of southern and central Somalia has been seized by the insurgents, while the president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed's administration controls only portions of Mogadishu, with support from the AU peacekeepers. The AU plans to send 2,000 additional peacekeepers to Somalia to bolster its existing 6,100-strong force, a move that the United Nations has welcomed as a sign that there is "heightened concern" at the continental body about the Somali conflict. Somalia is host to more than 2,000 foreign fighters, from India, Pakistan and elsewhere, who are providing funds and training for terrorist operations, Wafula Wamunyinyi, the deputy head of the AU mission in Somalia, told reporters yesterday in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.
Almost four million people in Somalia, equivalent to 40 per cent of the country's population, are in need of humanitarian aid and 1.4 million residents have been forced to flee their homes because of conflict, Mr Wamunyinyi said. Sheikh Ali Mohamoud Rage, a spokesman for Al Shabab, told reporters in Mogadishu yesterday the group plans to "eradicate the invaders and apostate government troops" in Somalia. "I call on all Al Shabab troops, beginning at this hour, to invade and destroy all entrenchments of the apostate and Christian troops," he said.
Al Shabab claimed responsibility last month for twin bombings in Uganda's capital that killed 76 people. Al Shabab said the attacks were in retaliation for Uganda's deployment of troops with the African Union. Al Shabab has increased the use of suicide attacks in recent years, though they are still somewhat rare in Somalia. Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts are believed to be helping train Al Shabab fighters. Somalia has not had a central government since 1991. *Agencies