By: ABDIKADIR OKASH
MOGADISHU—At least nine people have been killed late Thursday when the militant group Al Shabab attacked a popular beachfront restaurant in the Somali capital Mogadishu.
” Two attackers, five civilians and two security officers died in the attack,” the State news agency SONNA reported, adding that one of the attackers was captured alive after sustaining injuries during the fierce firefight.
The militants set off a car bomb to gain entry into the restaurant before engaging security forces in a fierce gunfight.
“A car bomb exploded at Banadir beach restaurant at Lido beach and there is exchange of gunfire. We have no other details so far,” Major Ahmed Ibrahim, a police officer with the Somali police force, told Reuters news agency late Thursday.
Al Shabab, which is linked with the Al Qaida global network claimed responsibility for the attack.
“We attacked the Banadir beach restaurant and now our fighters are fighting inside it,” Abdiasis Abu Musab, its military operation spokesman, told Reuters.
In late January, Shabaab gunmen detonated a bomb before bursting into the Lido Sea Food Restaurant and spraying gunfire at terrified customers, killing some 20 people.
Al Shabab is fighting the internationally-backed federal government headed by the outgoing president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud.
The country is expected to hold elections on October.
Much of Al Shabab threat has been weakened after it was driven out of Mogadishu in 2011 and in the port city of Kismayu in 2012 by a joint AMISOM force.
Since then, the group has resorted to attacks on civilian areas.
