At least 32 people have been killed and many more wounded in a suicide bombing and gun attack on a popular beach in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, according to officials.
Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked armed group, claimed responsibility for the attack on Lido Beach late on Friday via an affiliated radio station.
The assault began when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of Beach View Hotel. Several other attackers tried to storm the hotel and also fired on people on the beach, where many residents were walking or sitting, according to witnesses and police.
“More than 32 civilians died in this attack, and about 63 others were wounded, some of them critically,” police spokesman Abdifatah Adan Hassan told reporters, increasing the initial death toll from seven.
He said security forces had killed all the attackers at the scene and captured another one who was driving a car filled with explosives. One soldier was killed and another sustained injuries, he added.
A witness told The Associated Press news agency in a phone call that he saw an attacker wearing an explosive vest moments before the man “blew himself up next to the Beach View Hotel”. Mohamud Moalim also said some of his friends who were with him at the hotel were killed and others were wounded.
“Everybody was panicked and it was hard to know what was happening because shooting started soon after the blast,” another witness, Abdilatif Ali, told the AFP news agency, adding that people attempted take cover on the ground or flee.
“I saw many people strewn [on the ground] and some of them were dead and others wounded,” he said.
Somalia’s federal government condemned the attack, state media reported on Saturday.
In a post on X, former Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire sent his “deepest condolences to the families, relatives and friends” of those killed.
“The fact that the terrorist attack coincides with this night when the beach is the most congested shows the hostility of the terrorists to the Somali people.”
Lido Beach, a popular area in Mogadishu, is bustling on Friday nights as Somalis enjoy their weekend. The area has in the past been targeted by al-Shabab fighters.
Al-Shabab has been fighting to topple the fragile central government in Mogadishu for more than 17 years, carrying out numerous bombings and other attacks in the capital and other parts of the country.
The government depends on the support of foreign troops to stay in power. It has also joined forces with local armed groups to fight the group in a campaign supported by an African Union force and United States air raids.
But the offensive has suffered setbacks, with al-Shabab earlier this year claiming it had taken multiple locations in the centre of the country.
In June, Somalia called for the slowing down of the withdrawal of an African peacekeeping mission, known as ATMIS, which is expected to pull out by December 31.
Matt Bryden, strategic adviser with the Sahan Research think tank, said the attack was the largest to hit the country in months.
“It’s a massive security failure,” Bryden told Al Jazeera, noting that this suggested the government’s challenges in fighting al-Shabab ahead of the planned departure of the AU peacekeepers.
On the other hand, Bryden said al-Shabab sent a message that it has the capability to ramp up attacks in the capital as long as the government does not negotiate with it.
“But it’s a fine line that al-Shabab has to walk,” the analyst said.
The prospect of negotiations between the government and the armed group has been floated for years, and there are indications the government is closer than it has been for a long time in talking with the armed group, he added.
“Al-Shabab doesn’t want to delegitimise itself, portraying itself as an indiscriminate terrorist group just as it is seeking political power in the Somali capital … [but] it has just done that,” Bryden said.
