Tag Archives: Bombing

Texas man charged with trying to blow up Confederate statue

Texas man charged with trying to blow up Confederate statue

By Alex Dobuzinskis and Gina Cherelus

(Reuters) – Authorities in Houston charged a 25-year-old man on Monday with trying to blow up a Confederate statue, federal prosecutors said, following demonstrations and fierce debate in the United States about race and the legacy of America’s Civil War.

Word of the arrest of Andrew Schneck came just hours after the University of Texas at Austin said it moved statues tied to the Confederacy at its campus because they had become “symbols of modern white supremacy and neo-Nazism.”

White nationalists rallied earlier this month against proposals to take down a similar statue in Charlottesville, Virginia, and one woman was killed when a man crashed his car into a crowd of anti-racism counterprotesters.

The violence triggered the biggest domestic crisis yet for President Donald Trump, who provoked anger across the political spectrum for not immediately condemning white nationalists and for praising “very fine people” on both sides of the fight.

On Saturday night, a park ranger spotted Schneck kneeling in bushes in front of the General Dowling Monument in Houston’s Hermann Park, Federal prosecutors said in a statement.

In Schneck’s possession were a timer, wires, duct tape and two types of explosive including nitroglycerin, according to the prosecutors who described it as one of the world’s most powerful explosives. The items could have been used to make a viable explosive device, the prosecutors’ statement said.

If convicted of trying to maliciously damage or destroy property receiving federal financial assistance, Schneck faces up to 40 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

“It’s an evolving situation and the investigation is continuing,” Schneck’s attorney, Philip Hilder, said by phone. “So far I have not seen any evidence and it would be premature to comment at this time.”

A growing number of U.S. political leaders have called for the removal of statues honoring the Confederacy. Civil rights activists charge they promote racism while advocates of the statues contend they are a reminder of their heritage.

The city of West Palm Beach near Miami became the latest community on Monday to prepare to remove a Confederate symbol. The monument in a public cemetery belongs to the Daughters of the Confederacy, and it will be stored for the organization after its removal, Mayor Jeri Muoio told reporters.

Among the four statues removed overnight at the University at Austin was one of General Robert E. Lee, who led the pro-slavery Confederacy’s army during the Civil War.

Fenves said the statue of Lee and two others will be placed in the school’s Briscoe Center for American History and made available for scholarly study.

The school’s president, Greg Fenves, said in a statement that the monuments had to go following the “horrific displays of hatred” in Virginia that shocked and saddened the nation.

There are about 700 monuments to the Confederacy in public spaces across the United States, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, with the majority of them erected early in the 20th century amid a backlash among segregationists against the civil rights movement.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles and Gina Cherelus in New York; Editing by Matthew Lewis and Andrea Ricci)

Kansas man gets 30-year sentence for foiled bomb plot targeting U.S. military base

U.S. Army Soldiers, assigned to 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, fire a TOW missile from a Bradley Fighting Vehicle during training at Fort Riley, Kansas, May 18, 2016. U.S. Army photo by Capt. Jonathan Camire

(Reuters) – A Kansas man was sentenced on Monday to 30 years in federal prison for plotting a failed suicide bombing at a U.S. military base on behalf of Islamic State, federal prosecutors said.

John Booker Jr., 22, of Topeka, pleaded guilty in February to plotting the April 2015 attack on Army personnel at Fort Riley, Kansas, and aiding the Islamic State fight against the United States, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Booker was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas, on one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and one count of attempted destruction of government property by fire or explosion.

Booker was arrested as part of a sting operation in which he went to Fort Riley with two undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation agents to detonate what he did not know was an inert bomb.

Booker had planned to build a vehicle bomb holding 1,000 pounds (455 kg) of ammonium nitrate and trigger it himself, dying in the process, the Justice Department statement said.

Prosecutors said they had tracked Booker since he posted Facebook messages in March 2014 in which he said: “Getting ready to get killed in jihad is a HUGE adrenaline rush!!” He had been in unwitting contact with an undercover FBI agent since October 2014.

A friend of Booker, Alexander Blair, of Topeka, pleaded guilty to storing bomb equipment for him and was sentenced to 15 months in prison in October 2016.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Taliban suicide car bomber kills dozens in Afghan capital

An Afghan shopkeeper inspects his shop after a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan July 24, 2017. REUTERS/Mohammad Ismail

By Hamid Shalizi and James Mackenzie

KABUL (Reuters) – A Taliban suicide attacker detonated a car bomb in the western part of Kabul on Monday, killing up to 35 people and wounding more than 40, government officials said, in one of the worst attacks in the Afghan capital in recent weeks.

Police cordoned off the area, located near the house of the deputy government Chief Executive Mohammad Mohaqiq in a part of the city where many of the mainly Shi’ite Hazara community live.

Monday’s suicide bombing, which targeted government personnel, continued the unrelenting violence that has killed more than 1,700 civilians in Afghanistan so far this year.

The Taliban, which is battling the Western-backed government and a NATO-led coalition for control of Afghanistan, has launched a wave of attacks around the country in recent days, sparking fighting in more than half a dozen provinces.

“I was in my shop when suddenly I heard a terrible sound and as a result all of my shop windows shattered,” said Ali Ahmed, a resident in the area of Monday’s blast.

Acting Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said at least 24 people had been killed and 40 wounded but the casualty toll could rise further.

Another senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the incident with the media, said the toll stood at 35 killed. That was in line with a claim on Twitter by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who said 37 “intelligence workers” had been killed.

Mujahid said in a tweet claiming responsibility for the attack the target had been two buses that had been under surveillance for two months.

Government security forces said a small bus owned by the Ministry of Mines had been destroyed in the blast but the National Directorate for Security, the main intelligence agency, said none of its personnel had been hit.

Three civilian vehicles and 15 shops were destroyed or damaged in the blast, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

At least 1,662 civilians had already been killed in Afghanistan in the first half of the year.

Kabul has accounted for at least 20 percent of all civilian casualties this year, including at least 150 people killed in a massive truck bomb attack at the end of May, according to United Nations figures.

The Islamic State group claimed an attack on a mosque in the capital two weeks ago that killed at least four people.

On Sunday, dozens of Afghan troops were under siege after Taliban fighters overran a district in northern Faryab province, a spokesman for the provincial police said.

There was also fighting in Baghlan, Badakhshan, and Kunduz provinces in Afghanistan’s north, and Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan in the south, according to officials.

The resurgence of violence also coincides with the U.S. administration weighing up its strategic options for Afghanistan, including the possibility of sending more troops to bolster the NATO-led training and advisory mission already helping Afghan forces.

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi and James Mackenzie; Editing by Paul Tait)

Taliban suicide car bomber kills dozens in Afghan capital

An Afghan shopkeeper inspects his shop after a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan July 24, 2017.

By Hamid Shalizi and James Mackenzie

KABUL (Reuters) – A Taliban suicide attacker detonated a car bomb in the western part of Kabul on Monday, killing up to 35 people and wounding more than 40, government officials said, in one of the worst attacks in the Afghan capital in recent weeks.

Police cordoned off the area, located near the house of the deputy government Chief Executive Mohammad Mohaqiq in a part of the city where many of the mainly Shi’ite Hazara community live.

Monday’s suicide bombing, which targeted government personnel, continued the unrelenting violence that has killed more than 1,700 civilians in Afghanistan so far this year.

The Taliban, which is battling the Western-backed government and a NATO-led coalition for control of Afghanistan, has launched a wave of attacks around the country in recent days, sparking fighting in more than half a dozen provinces.

“I was in my shop when suddenly I heard a terrible sound and as a result all of my shop windows shattered,” said Ali Ahmed, a resident in the area of Monday’s blast.

Acting Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said at least 24 people had been killed and 40 wounded but the casualty toll could rise further.

Another senior official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the incident with the media, said the toll stood at 35 killed. That was in line with a claim on Twitter by Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid, who said 37 “intelligence workers” had been killed.

Mujahid said in a tweet claiming responsibility for the attack the target had been two buses that had been under surveillance for two months.

Government security forces said a small bus owned by the Ministry of Mines had been destroyed in the blast but the National Directorate for Security, the main intelligence agency, said none of its personnel had been hit.

Three civilian vehicles and 15 shops were destroyed or damaged in the blast, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

At least 1,662 civilians had already been killed in Afghanistan in the first half of the year.

Kabul has accounted for at least 20 percent of all civilian casualties this year, including at least 150 people killed in a massive truck bomb attack at the end of May, according to United Nations figures.

The Islamic State group claimed an attack on a mosque in the capital two weeks ago that killed at least four people.

On Sunday, dozens of Afghan troops were under siege after Taliban fighters overran a district in northern Faryab province, a spokesman for the provincial police said.

There was also fighting in Baghlan, Badakhshan, and Kunduz provinces in Afghanistan’s north, and Kandahar, Helmand, and Uruzgan in the south, according to officials.

The resurgence of violence also coincides with the U.S. administration weighing up its strategic options for Afghanistan, including the possibility of sending more troops to bolster the NATO-led training and advisory mission already helping Afghan forces.

 

(Reporting by Hamid Shalizi and James Mackenzie; Editing by Paul Tait)

 

A dozen killed, over 40 wounded in Cameroon suicide bomb attack

DOUALA (Reuters) – Two suicide bombers killed at least 12 people and wounded over 40 others in a small town in northern Cameroon near the Nigerian border late on Wednesday, a senior army source and a local official told Reuters.

“There were 14 deaths, including the two suicide bombers, and 42 wounded,” said an army colonel responsible for evacuating the wounded who asked to remain anonymous. “The attack was perpetrated by one suicide bomber, and the other was shot dead.”

The attack was carried out by two women who walked into a busy area in the center of Waza, five miles (8 km) from the Nigerian border, said Midjiyawa Bakari, the governor for the Far North region where the attack took place. He said that 13 had been killed and 43 wounded. A baby was among the dead, he said.

Many were seriously wounded and were flown to nearby hospitals, he said.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but the region has been a frequent target of Boko Haram militants in their eight-year bid to carve out an Islamic caliphate beyond Nigeria.

Last month, nine were killed in the town of Kolofata when two children carrying explosives blew themselves up near a camp housing people displaced by Boko Haram violence.

In eight years, Boko Haram attacks have killed more than 20,000 people in the Lake Chad region, including Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and Niger and, according to the latest U.N. refugee agency figures, displaced 2.7 million.

(Reporting By Josiane Kouagheu, writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Islamic State cornered in Mosul as Iraq prepares victory celebrations

Members of Iraqi Federal Police carry a boy as they celebrate victory of military operations against the Islamic State militants in West Mosul, Iraq July 2, 2017.

By Stephen Kalin and Maher Chmaytelli

MOSUL/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters were battling to hold on to the last few streets under their control in the Old City of Mosul on Monday, making a doomed last stand in their former Iraqi stronghold.

In fierce fighting, Iraqi army units forced the insurgents back into a shrinking rectangle no more than 300 by 500 meters beside the Tigris river, according to a map published by the military media office.

Smoke covered parts of the Old City, which were rocked by air strikes and artillery salvos through the morning.

The number of Islamic State (IS) militants fighting in Mosul has dwindled from thousands at the start of the government offensive more than eight months ago to a mere couple of hundred now, according to the Iraqi military.

Iraqi forces say they expect to reach the Tigris and regain full control over the city by the end of this week. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is expected to visit Mosul to formally declare victory, and a week of nationwide celebrations is planned.

Mosul is by far the largest city captured by Islamic State. It was here, nearly three years ago to the day, that it declared the founding of its “caliphate” over parts of Iraq and Syria.

With Mosul gone, its territory in Iraq will be limited to areas west and south of the city where some tens of thousands of civilians live.

“Victory is very near, only 300 meters separate the security forces from the Tigris,” military spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool told state TV.

Abadi declared the end of Islamic State’s “state of falsehood” on Thursday, after the security forces took Mosul’s medieval Grand al-Nuri mosque.

It was from here that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his first and only video appearance, proclaiming himself “caliph” – the ruler of a theocratic Islamic state – on July 4, 2014.

 

SUICIDE ATTACKS

With its territory shrinking fast, the group has been stepping up suicide attacks in the parts of Mosul taken by Iraqi forces and elsewhere.

On Sunday, a male suicide bomber dressed in a woman’s veil killed 14 people and wounded 13 others in a displacement camp west of the capital Baghdad known as Kilo 60, security sources said. Islamic State claimed responsibility.

“The people who were attacked had fled to Kilo 60 for their safety. Many have traveled huge distances seeking help,” Lise Grande, the United Nations’ Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, said in a statement.

Islamic State said on Sunday it had carried out 32 suicide attacks in June in Iraq and 23 in Syria, of which 11 were on the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces attacking its stronghold of Raqqa.

Destroyed buildings from clashes are seen during the fight with the Islamic States militants in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 3,

Destroyed buildings from clashes are seen during the fight with the Islamic States militants in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq July 3, 2017. REUTERS/Ahmed Jadallah

Iraqi state television said thousands of people had fled Mosul’s densely-populated Old City over the past 24 hours.

But thousands more are believed trapped in the area with little food, water or medicine, and are effectively being used as human shields, according to residents who have managed to escape.

Months of grinding urban warfare have displaced 900,000 people, about half the city’s pre-war population, and killed thousands, according to aid organizations.

Baghdadi has left the fighting in Mosul to local commanders and is believed to be hiding near the Iraq-Syrian border, according to U.S. and Iraqi military sources.

The group has moved its remaining command and control structures to Mayadin, in eastern Syria, U.S. intelligence sources have said.

 

(Additional reporting by Khaled al-Ramahi in Mosul; writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

 

Colombians leave floral tributes amid probe into deadly Bogota blast

People light candles in the Andino shopping center after an explosive device detonated in a restroom on Saturday, in Bogota, Colombia June 18, 2017. REUTERS/Jaime Saldarriaga

By Nelson Bocanegra and Helen Murphy

BOGOTA (Reuters) – Floral tributes were placed at the Bogota shopping center where three women were killed and nine wounded after an explosive device detonated in a restroom as Colombians flocked to buy gifts ahead of Sunday’s Father’s Day celebrations.

The normally busy Andino mall was eerily quiet as people placed flowers on the main floor of the upscale retail center, which on Saturday afternoon was the scene of chaos and terror as the device exploded inside a toilet stall on the second floor.

President Juan Manuel Santos denounced the “cowardly terrorist act” and offered a reward of 100 million pesos ($34,258) for information leading to capture of those responsible.

He said investigators are working on three hypotheses but declined to provide any information while the probe is underway. No one has claimed responsibility for the deadly act.

“The objective of terrorism is to sow fear, and our response to that is to show unity and bravery to confront it,” said Santos following a security council meeting with members of the armed forces and ministers.

“Colombians must unite and show solidarity to confront such cowardly acts.”

He asked residents to be vigilant but not let the attack cower them. Santos later visited Andino’s food court to have lunch with his son.

Police said the device was placed behind a toilet bowl. Half a dozen forensic police dressed in white overalls were at the scene on the second floor as scores of uniformed officials and intelligence personnel scanned the mall.

One of the victims was a 23-year old French woman identified as Julie Huynh who had been volunteering in a poor area of the city. Colombians Ana Maria Gutierrez, 27, and Lady Paola Jaimes Ovalle, 31, also died. A fourth woman remains in intensive care.

“It was incredible, I heard the explosion, but I never imagined that it was an attack, that it could be so horrible, I can’t sleep,” said Maria Vasquez, 56, as she looked toward the door of the restroom on Sunday.

“This is unforgivable. Children could have been hurt as they go to the toilet with their mothers,” said Pedro Alvarez, as he placed a paper flower at the information desk.

Many stores remained shut as people milled around in silence.

Photographs on social media late on Saturday showed a woman slumped against the wall in a pool of blood and what appeared to be a shard of metal piercing her back. In front of her was another woman with her leg torn apart above the knee.

Another image showed the destroyed toilet cubicle with a blood-splattered handrail and debris strewn over the floor.

Security has improved in Bogota over the past decade as police and military increased surveillance and put more armed officials on the streets. At one time all bags were checked at the entrance to shopping malls, but that has been vastly scaled back in recent years.

Bomb dogs still check cars at parking facilities in the capital.

A peace accord signed last year with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country’s biggest guerrilla group, raised confidence bomb attacks might cease.

The country’s second-largest insurgent group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), in February detonated a bomb in Bogota, injuring dozens of police.

The Marxist ELN, currently negotiating a peace accord with the government, on Saturday condemned the attack against civilians.

Authorities have said there have been threats of attacks in Bogota by the so-called Gulf Clan, a group of former right-wing paramilitary fighters who traffic drugs.

(Writing by Helen Murphy; editing by Diane Craft)

Mosul Old City battle goes house to house as Islamic State fighters defend

Smoke billows from the positions of the Islamic State militants after an airstrike in western Mosul, Iraq June 19, 2017

By Sergei Karazy, Alkis Konstantinidis and Ahmed Rasheed

MOSUL/BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) – Islamic State fighters defended their remaining stronghold in the Old City of Mosul on Monday, moving stealthily along narrow back alleys as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces slowly advanced.

The intensity of fighting was lower than on Sunday, when Iraqi forces announced the start of the assault on the Old City, a Reuters visuals team reported from near the frontlines.

The historic district, and a tiny area to its north, are the only parts of the city still under the militants’ control. Mosul used to be the Iraqi capital of the group, also known as ISIS.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) expressed alarm on Monday at the situation of the civilians in the Old City, estimated at more than 100,000 by the United Nations.

“We’re seeing dozens of new patients a day, including children and the elderly,” said Julia Schuerch, an ICRC emergency specialist in Mosul.

“For a heart-breakingly high number, it was simply too late; they died soon after reaching us,” she said in a statement from the organization calling for the evacuation of the wounded. “This is the final chapter” of the offensive to take Mosul, said Lieutenant General Abdul Ghani al-Assadi, senior commander

in Mosul of Counter Terrorism Service.

The militants are moving house to house through holes knocked in inner walls to avoid air surveillance, said Major-General Sami al-Arithi of the Counter Terrorism Service, the elite units spearheading the fighting north of the Old City.

The Iraqi army estimates the number of Islamic State fighters at no more than 300, down from nearly 6,000 in the city when the battle of Mosul started on Oct. 17.

The civilians trapped in the Old City, a densely-populated maze of narrow alleyways, have little food, water or medical supplies.

“An estimated 50,000 children are in grave danger as the

fighting in Mosul enters what is likely to be its deadliest

phase yet,” Save the Children said in a statement.

“CALIPHATE” NEARS END

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing air and ground support.

The fall of Mosul would, in effect, mark the end of the Iraqi half of the “caliphate” that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared three years ago and which once covered swathes of Iraq and Syria.

The Iraqi government initially hoped to take Mosul by the end of 2016, but the campaign took longer as militants reinforced positions in civilian areas to fight back.

Islamic State is using suicide car and motorbike bombs, booby traps and sniper and mortar fire against the troops.

Hundreds of civilians fleeing the Old City have been killed in the past three weeks, as Iraqi forces could not fully secure exit corridors.

Islamic State snipers are shooting at families trying to flee on foot or by boat across the Tigris River, as part of a tactic to keep civilians as human shields, according to the United Nations.

The militants are also retreating in Syria, mainly in the face of a U.S.-backed Kurdish-led coalition. Its capital there, Raqqa, is under siege.

About 850,000 people, more than a third of the pre-war population of the northern Iraqi city, have fled, seeking refuge with relatives or in camps, according to aid groups.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi headed on Monday to Saudi Arabia, the first leg of a Middle East tour that will also include Iran and Kuwait, in a diplomatic effort to foster regional reconciliation and coordination against terrorism, his office said.

(Writing by Maher Chmaytelli,; editing by Ralph Boulton and Ed Osmond)

Chinese kindergarten blast attacker had neurological disorder: officials

A person wearing protection on his shoes and head, sweeps near the scene of an explosion at a kindergarten in Fengxian County in Jiangsu Province, China June 16, 2017. REUTERS/Aly Song

XUZHOU, China (Reuters) – The man who set off a self-made explosive device outside a Chinese kindergarten killing eight people and injuring 65 others on Thursday had a neurological disorder and had scrawled words for death on the walls of his home, officials said on Friday.

The 22-year-old man, surnamed Xu, was among those killed in the blast near the entrance to the kindergarten in Xuzhou, a city in the coastal province of Jiangsu, police said in a briefing shown on state television.

The official Xinhua news agency said police were considering the act a “criminal offense”.

Xu had dropped out of an unnamed school due to his neurological condition and rented an apartment near the kindergarten, China Central Television said.

“Self-made explosive device materials were found in his apartment, and on the walls in many places were handwritten words such as kill, death, destroy and terminate,” it said.

Two people died at the scene of the blast and six more died from their injuries in hospital. Xinhua reported on Thursday night that eight people were in a critical condition.

Pictures circulating on Chinese social media showed about a dozen women and children lying on the ground in what appeared to be the immediate aftermath of the blast.

One video showed an injured woman with scorched clothing staggering unsteadily, while others sat on a floor holding crying children in their arms.

Reuters could not independently verify the authenticity of the videos. None of those injured were children or teachers, Xinhua said.

“When I arrived, the scene was messy, both adults and children were lying on the ground. I felt very scared,” a local shopkeeper Wei Xunying, who rushed to the site, told Reuters on Friday.

China’s Ministry of Education issued a statement demanding that education officials strengthen security around schools to ensure the safety of students and teachers.

Local authorities said that contrary to early reports the blast did not occur while parents were picking up children after school, according to the People’s Daily.

Explosives are relatively easy to obtain in China, home to the world’s largest mining and fireworks industries.

Violent crime is rare in China compared with many other countries, but there have been a series of knife and axe attacks in recent years, many targeting children.

(Reporting by Philip Wen, Christian Shepherd, and Michael Martina in Beijing; Shanghai newsroom in Xuzhou; Editing by Michael Perry)

At least 19 killed in hotel attack in Somali capital

Damaged vehicles are seen at the scene of an attack outside a hotel and an adjacent restaurant in Mogadishu, Somalia June 15, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

By Feisal Omar

MOGADISHU (Reuters) – At least 19 people were killed when Islamist militants launched a car bomb and gun attack on a busy hotel and adjacent restaurant in the Somali capital, a police officer said on Thursday.

A car driven by a suicide bomber rammed into the Posh Hotel in south Mogadishu on Wednesday evening before gunmen rushed into Pizza House, an adjacent restaurant, and took 20 people hostage. Posh Hotel is the only venue with a discotheque in the capital.

District police chief Abdi Bashir told Reuters Somali security forces took back control of the restaurant at midnight after the gunmen had held hostages inside for several hours. Five of the gunmen were killed, Bashir said.

“We are in control of the hotel but it was mostly destroyed by the suicide bomber,” he told Reuters by phone.

Witnesses said there were bodies lying at the scene on Thursday morning as ambulances came to take them away.

Ahmed Mohamud Adow, the spokesman for the country’s interior ministry, said the dead included a Syrian national who worked at the restaurant. He did not identify the dead Syrian who local residents said worked as a chef at the Pizza House.

Another 27 civilians were taken to hospital with various injuries, ambulance services said. Witnesses said the attack was launched after the Iftar dinner for customers who are fasting for Ramadan. Most of them were still inside relaxing.

The wreckages of three-wheeled scooters caught up in the blast at the hotel, which also housed a massage parlor, lay overturned around the scene.

Al Shabaab, the Islamist militant group, claimed responsibility for the attack. The group claimed on Thursday morning it killed more than 20 people including soldiers and government workers.

Al Shabaab usually provides a higher death toll from its attacks than the government’s figures.

The group has carried out a campaign of suicide bombings in its bid to topple the Somali government and impose its strict interpretation of Islam.

Since losing large swathes of territory to African Union peacekeepers supporting the government, the group has frequently launched raids and deadly attacks in Mogadishu and other regions controlled by the federal government.

The Horn of Africa country has been racked by armed conflict since 1991, when clan-based warlords overthrew dictator Siad Barre and then turned on each other.

President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, who was elected into office earlier this year, promised to defeat al Shabaab.

(Writing by Duncan Miriri; Editing by Ralph Boulton)