Africa

Africa

Three dead in twin suicide attack on Mogadishu restaurant

03 November 2012 17:24 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Twin suicide bombers on Saturday hit an up-market restaurant in the Somali capital Mogadishu, left the two attacker and a guard dead and wounded three others after attackers detonated explosives at the gate, official and witnesses said, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"The two suicide attackers and one of the guards died in the explosion which happened at the gate of the restaurant after the guards prevented the attackers from getting into the building," Hodan district commissioner Abdi Mohamed Dhabaney told Xinhua.

The Village Restaurant is an up-market dining place where local business people, Somali government civil servants and journalists frequent. It is also a popular hangout spot for many of Mogadishu’s returning diaspora.

This is the second branch of the Village Restaurant hit in Mogadishu after Al-Shabaab group claimed responsibility for deadly attack on another branch of the restaurant in the Hamarweyne district of Mogadishu in September.

Two journalists were among the September attack on the restaurant.

"The attack was foiled by the vigilant guards at the restaurant who prevented the two suicide bombers from getting into the restaurant," police officer Farah Geer told Xinhua.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack which carries all the hallmarks of Al-Shabaab tactics.

The radical group which has lost control of Mogadishu and much of the areas it ran in south and centre of the war-torn country, following concerted offensive by allied Somali government forces and African Union peacekeeping troops in Somalia.

Al-Shabaab vowed to continue attacks in areas under Somali government’s control where it carried suicide bombing and roadside explosions that killed a number of people, mostly civilians.