10 dead after gunmen set off car bomb, raid beach restaurant in Somali capital

The death toll from an attack late on Thursday by militants on a seaside restaurant in the Somali capital Mogadishu has risen to 10, police said.

Militants attacked the Banadir beach restaurant in the capital Mogadishu on Thursday, with gunmen raiding the building after setting off a car bomb, police and the insurgent group said. 

The attackers then engaged in a fight with security forces for several hours.

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The casualties comprised six civilians, two members of the security forces and two of the attackers, Ali Abdullahi, a police officer, said on Friday.

Al Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab claimed the attack, which ended at around 3:00 a.m. local time, police said.

Witnesses near the scene of the beach attack said the restaurant had been sealed off by security officers and that the attackers had lobbed grenades at the officers and fired at them. They said they had also seen two bodies lying on the ground.

Internal Security Minister Abdirizak Omar Mohamed said on his Twitter account: "Warning: People near the blast scene should stay in the hotels and in their houses in which they are inside. Cars should not enter Lido beach area."

In a separate incident in southern Somalia, a roadside bomb planted by al-Shabaab militants injured 10 people, police said on Friday, raising the number of wounded from three initially. One of those wounded in the explosion in Baardhere town in Gedo region was the local district commissioner, police said.​

Several deadly attacks

The same group has carried out a series of deadly attacks in Somalia to try to topple the Western-backed government. In January, its militants stormed another restaurant on Lido beach, killing 17 people.

On Sunday, more than 20 people were killed when its suicide bombers detonated two car bombs at a local government headquarters in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region.

Al-Shabaab was pushed out of Mogadishu by the African Union peacekeeping force AMISOM in 2011 but has remained a potent threat in Somalia, launching frequent attacks aimed at overthrowing the Western-backed government.

In a separate incident in southern Somalia, a roadside bomb believed to have been planted by al-Shabaab militants wounded at three people in Baardheere town in Gedo region, Col. Hussein Nur, a police officer in the town, told Reuters by phone.