More than 20 people were killed in the attack and explosion by militants at the Elite hotel near the popular Lida Beach in Somalia. This was reported by the Somali Guardian.
According to preliminary information, in the afternoon of August 16, on Sunday, a car filled with explosives exploded near the hotel, after which the Al-Shabab militants began storming the building and took hostages.
At the moment, the security forces have completed the operation to free the hotel. All militants were eliminated. It is also known that as a result of the shelling and explosion, more than 20 people were killed, another 35 were injured.
The newly built hotel belongs to a member of parliament and is popular with Somali politicians. The privately owned hotel was one of the most heavily guarded sites in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, according to reporters. Among the dead, presumably, there are high-ranking officials.
Al-Shabab was established in Somalia in 2004. Since 2008, its militants periodically commit terrorist acts. By 2010, the group controlled vast territories, but in the summer of 2011 it was forced to leave the capital of Somalia, Mogadishu, and switch to guerrilla tactics against the country’s government and its allies.
In February 2012, one of the leaders of Al-Shabab announced the joining of the militants to the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda (banned in the Russian Federation). The total number of Al-Shabab, according to intelligence from the African Union Peacekeeping Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), is now 7,000 militants.
On 2 August, six children were reported dead and four were injured in an explosion in northern Burkina Faso. A group of children were grazing cattle when an improvised explosive device went off on their way.