Mogadishu (Agencies): At least 32 people have been killed and dozens injured in a suicide attack at a beach restaurant in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Friday, state media SONNA reported Saturday.
Six members of the Somali militant group al-Shabaab targeted the restaurant at the Beach View Hotel using a suicide bomb, according to SONNA. Five attackers were killed, SONNA reported. It is unclear what happened to the sixth.
Video from the attack site the morning after the blast shows civilians surrounding an ambulance. People sit around on the sand, with an area of the ground appearing blackened.
Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they were targeting Somali officials and officers, according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks online activity of extremist organizations.
The Islamist militant group has claimed numerous attacks and operates with the aim of toppling the central Somali government and establishing a rule based on its strict interpretation of Sharia law.
Al-Shabaab is the “largest and most kinetically active al-Qaeda network in the world,” the US Africa Command said last year. It was designated as a terrorist group by the US in 2008, and by a UN Security Council committee in 2010.
Last year, it launched a deadly attack on an African Union military base in Somalia, killing at least 54 Ugandan soldiers, according to Ugandan officials.