Islamist gunmen attack beachside café in Mogadishu

Islamist gunmen stormed a popular beachside restaurant in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Thursday, setting off two car bombs and battling government soldiers who are trying to flush them out.

Al-Shabab, a militant group which is aligned with al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack on the Beach View Café on Mogadishu’s popular Lido beach.

“We are inside and control the café,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, spokesman for al-Shabab’s military operations, told Reuters.

“There are many casualties lying inside and outside the café.”

Police said al-Shabab fighters set off the first car bomb at dusk.

A huge second blast, which witnesses said echoed across Mogadishu city centre, struck about an hour later, as government soldiers laid siege to the restaurant.

“The second car bomb has just exploded and the fighters are still inside,” Major Farah Abdulle, a police officer at the scene, told Reuters.

“We cannot know the number of casualties inside.”

Al-Shabab

Al-Shabab wants to topple the western-backed government in Mogadishu and impose a strict version of Islamic law across Somalia, a nation racked by conflict since the outbreak of civil war in 1991.

Reuters