{"id":1034,"date":"2017-11-01T22:24:56","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T22:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/?p=1034"},"modified":"2017-11-01T22:24:56","modified_gmt":"2017-11-01T22:24:56","slug":"deadly-double-bombing-strikes-mogadishu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/2017\/11\/01\/deadly-double-bombing-strikes-mogadishu\/","title":{"rendered":"Deadly double bombing strikes Mogadishu"},"content":{"rendered":"

Al-Jazeera<\/p>\n

At least 23 people have been killed in a double car bombing in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, which is still reeling from an attack that left hundreds dead earlier this month.<\/p>\n

A suicide car bomber first drove into a hotel where President\u00a0Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo\u00a0was due to host a meeting on Saturday, followed by a car bombing near a former parliament building.<\/p>\n

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the attacks, Al Jazeera\u2019s Mohammed Adow, reporting from Nairobi in neighbouring\u00a0Kenya<\/a>, said.<\/p>\n

He said at least three heavily armed\u00a0al-Shabab<\/a>fighters gained entry into the Nasa-Hablod Hotel on the heels of the car bombing there, but they were later killed by Somali security forces.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can confirm that the president was not at the hotel at the time of the attack,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Farmajo was scheduled to meet the presidents of\u00a0Somalia<\/a>\u2018s five federal republics at the hotel\u00a0later in the evening, he said.<\/p>\n

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A car packed with explosives blew up outside Nasa-Hablod Hotel [Mohamed Abdiwahab\/AFP]<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cRescue workers are saying the death toll could be much higher. They have recovered many bodies from the hotel,\u201d our correspondent said, quoting witnesses who reported seeing al-Shabab fighters throw grenades inside the hotel.<\/p>\n

Several buildings near the hotel also collapsed, trapping an unknown number of people beneath the rubble.<\/p>\n

Mohamed Ahmed, a tuk-tuk driver who was driving by the Nasa-Hablod Hotel at the time of the attack, said he \u201csaw a car exploding at the gate of the hotel. I don\u2019t know where two of my customers have gone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if they are dead or alive. But I saw four dead bodies\u201d.<\/p>\n

Security fragility<\/h2>\n

Al Jazeera\u2019s Adow said al-Shabab \u201cseems to have taken advantage of the fragility of the national security apparatus. No one expected them to carry this out just two weeks to the day they launched Somalia\u2019s\u00a0deadliest attack<\/a>, in which more than 358 people were killed\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

According to an Al Jazeera tally, since the start of this year more than 20 explosions have targeted Mogadishu, killing at least 500 people and injuring more than 630.<\/p>\n

A roadside explosion hit a minibus carrying passengers, 36km south of Mogadishu, on October 22, killing at least 11 people.<\/p>\n

The devastating attack on October 14 left at least 358 people dead and more than 400 injured.<\/p>\n

The Somali government blamed al-Shabab for the assault, but no group has claimed responsibility so far.<\/p>\n

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Al-Jazeera At least 23 people have been killed in a double car bombing in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, which is still reeling from an attack that left hundreds dead earlier this month. A suicide car bomber first drove into a hotel where President\u00a0Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo\u00a0was due to host a meeting on Saturday, followed by a car bombing near a former… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1034"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1035,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1034\/revisions\/1035"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}