– Spike in violence –
Saturday’s attack came just three weeks after another assault quickly claimed the Shabaab group on the city’s Ambassador hotel left 10 dead including two lawmakers when a huge car bomb ripped the front off the six-storey building.
The Shabaab lost their foothold in the capital in 2011 but continue their battle to overthrow the Somali government and launch regular attacks on military, government and civilian targets like hotels and restaurants in Mogadishu and elsewhere.
In November last year, the Islamists carried out a similar attack on the Sahafi hotel in central Mogadishu, leaving at least 12 dead.
Across the border in Kenya, five policemen were killed on Monday when suspected Shabaab fighters attacked their convoy.
Shabaab insurgents have staged repeated attacks in Kenya, including the killing of at least 67 people at Nairobi’s Westgate Mall in 2013 and the massacre of 148 people at a university in Garissa in April 2015.
The Shabaab earlier this month confirmed the death in a special forces raid of a commander named Mohamed Mohamud aka Dulyadin, who was suspected of organising the Garissa University attack.
In recent months they have also claimed attacks on bases of the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia (AMISOM).
The authorities in Nairobi have vowed to send back 350,000 Somali refugees living in Dadaab camp in northeast Kenya.
The UN refugee agency however has called on Kenya to ensure the repatriation is carried out “in a humane, dignified manner, in line with international principles”.
The vast majority of residents of the sprawling Dadaab complex of camps close to the Kenya-Somalia border fled Somalia’s more than two-decades long conflict. Many remain fearful of returning to a country where insecurity remains rife and poverty is widespread.
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