Nearly 12 hours after the Al-Shabaab militants attacked the well-known hotel in Mogadishu, Somali special forces are engaged in combat with the insurgents inside the Villa Rose.
Witnesses claim that the attack started around 8:00 p.m. with two suicide bombings before armed Al-Shabaab fighters stormed the Bondhere district complex in Mogadishu.
According to witnesses and police, there were several government representatives inside the hotel when the militants struck.
The number of Al-Shabaab terrorists who took part in the assault is unknown.
The attack on Villa Rose has forced the cancellation of a joint parliamentary session that was set to take place on Monday morning.
Senior government officials, including cabinet ministers, frequently stay at the hotel since it is close to important federal government facilities, including Somalia’s Presidential Palace, which is less than 2 kilometers away.
On its website, The Villa Rose touts its metal detectors and high surrounding wall as the “most safe lodging arrangement in Mogadishu.”
Hospital sources reported Hiiraan that at least ten people were killed in the incident, however the Somali government has not publicly disclosed the number of casualties.
According to the Director General of the Ministry of Petroleum & Mineral Resources, Mohamed Hashi Abdi Arabey, and local journalists, Mohamed Sayid Hassan Elmi, a British national who had just recently arrived in Somalia, was apparently murdered in the attack.
Mohamed Ahmed Doodishe, the federal minister of security for Somalia, and Abdullahi Bashir, a former officer in the ministry of finance, were both hurt in the incident.
A spokesman for the national police, Sadik Dudishe, said that dozens of people, including government officials, were saved but gave no further details. He added that there were several armed insurgents inside who were being “killed” by government forces.
Al Shabaab, an organization with ties to Al Qaeda that has spent the past 15 years trying to overthrow Somalia’s internationally supported government, took credit for the attack.
As part of a high-profile government campaign against them in recent months, Al-Shabab militants had been forced out of dozens of towns and villages in central Somalia at the time of the attack on Sunday.
Just days after another 49 al-Shabab militants were killed in the southern portion of the lower Shabelle region, Somalia’s information ministry reported on Saturday that government forces and clan militias allied with them had killed at least 100 al-Shabab fighters in the central Middle Shabelle region.
Since President Mohamud took office in mid-May, the Al-Shabaab has carried out three hotel raids. The most recent one was at the Villa Rose hotel. In a 30-hour siege on the Hayat hotel in Mogadishu in August, at least 21 people died, and in late October, 11 more died at the Tawakal Hotel in Kismayo.