Suicide car bomber kills 12 outside hotel in Somalia

Suicide car bomber kills 12 outside hotel in Somalia

2012-02-09 08:46:16 GMT+7 (ICT)

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA (BNO NEWS) -- At least 12 people were killed on Wednesday when a car bomb exploded outside a hotel in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, media reports said. More than a dozen others were injured.

The suicide car bomber struck the Muna hotel which is next to the presidential palace in Hamarweine district. A BBC Radio correspondent in Mogadishu said the car was loaded with explosives and struck the hotel near a cafe where many people were sitting.

The Somali militant group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attack, confirming the hotel - where hundreds of Somali parliament members and government officials reside - was the target. "The target was the hotel," said a radio station run by al-Shabab.

"The explosion was a land mine which was set up in the area," al-Shabab spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Mus'ab said in a statement to the press. He claimed that both security officials and parliamentarians were killed in the blast.

However, regional police commissioner Col. Ahmed Hassan Malin said the victims of the attack were all civilians, reports said. He said at least twelve civilians were killed while fifteen others were injured, some seriously.

Abu Mus'ab added that al-Shabab will continue to target Somali lawmakers because of "their drafting constitution" against Allah's religion. 

Al-Shabaab is the militant wing of the Somali Council of Islamic Courts which took over most of southern Somalia in the second half of 2006. Despite efforts from the Somali and Ethiopian governments, the group has continued its violent insurgency in southern and central Somalia.

Somalia has been without an effective government since Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown two decades ago.

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