The Somalian capital Mogadishu was lit up this afternoon when the Islamist group of Al Shabaab, the local Al Qaeda allied extremist cult, drove a truck loaded with explosives into the business district, not far from the US embassy.
Mr Hussein, a local police officer stated: "It was a truck bomb. It exploded at the K5 Junction. There are casualties but we do not know the exact amount as the scene is still burning."
<blockquote class="twitter-video" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Mogadishu?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Mogadishu</a>: largest explosion to date, kills at least 20 people in city center near international embassies <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Somalia?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Somalia</a> <a href="https://t.co/onA0dW6Q9B">pic.twitter.com/onA0dW6Q9B</a></p>— Kristina Dei 📡 (@2kdei) <a href="https://twitter.com/2kdei/status/919202945853399040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 14, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Later reports put the number of dead at 35, whilst some 50 people were wounded.
Al Shabaab, which wants to install an Islamic Caliphate in Somalia and apply Sharia law, lost out in the war against the UN backed government and it’s African Union allies. But from time to time, like today, they strike the capital Mogadishu with rockets or suicide bombers. It would seem that now they have chosen a very effective method to bring their terrible message across.
The explosion was followed by gunfire between security forces and armed men.
"The fighters first detonated a bomb outside the hotel's gate, and then about four gunmen on foot gained entry into the hotel and started shooting at the patrons and also the security of the hotel," Al Jazeera's Mr Adow, a local reporter, said. "The hotel's security staff, together with the police, are engaging a gun fight inside and outside the hotel."
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Mogadishu has a bad ring for Americans historians as it was from there that the US embassy attacks in 1998 were masterminded. More than 220 people died and 5,000 were hurt in those attacks, truck bombings on the US embassies of Nairobi and Dar es Salaam which were the forbearer of the Al Qaeda attack of 9/11 just three years later.
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