Somali Security minister, Abdirisack Omar Mohamed said on Thursday that it plans to tighten the overall security of Mogadishu barely a day after deadly car bomb by Al-Shabaab fighters.
“The government plans to carry out security measure to enhance security of the country ahead of the August elections,” said Mohamed
Mogadishu has seen spate of deadly attacks, including roadside bomb and suicide car blasts since Al-Shababb pulled out of the capital 2011 in result of Somali and AMISOM offensives.
The move comes a days after Al Shabab suicide car bomb killed 15 people including two lawmakers at the Ambassador Hotel in Mogadishu.
Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack, which sheared off the front of the luxury hotel and left blood spattered on bullet-marked walls. The twisted remains of dozens of vehicles ringed the site.
One fighter was killed at the entrance to the hotel while two others entered and shot at residents, the AU force said in a statement. All the attackers were killed in the siege.
Nine bodies were removed from the hotel after troops killed the remaining assailants, Capt. Mohamed Hussein, a senior Somali police officer, told The Associated Press.
Six out of 40 people injured in the attack died from their wounds, Ahmed Mohamed, a nurse at Madina hospital in Mogadishu, said.
Victims screamed in pain in overwhelmed hospitals, and there were fears the death toll could rise.
The two members of parliament who were killed in the attack had dual British citizenship, a statement from British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond’s office said as he visited Somalia for security talks.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud condemned the attack, saying extremists launched it after suffering major blows from the country’s security forces in rebel-held towns in recent months.
The U.N. Security Council also condemned the attack and stressed the need to “prevent and suppress the financing of Al-Shabaab, and any other terrorist group in Somalia,” in a statement issued Thursday.
The hotel attack came on the eve of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, during which extremists often step up attacks in this volatile East African country.
