Islamist militants shot dead 30 people, including six members of parliament in a suicide attack on a Mogadishu hotel Tuesday, Somalia's deputy prime minister said.
The two militants from the Shebab insurgency disguised as government security forces then blew themselves up to avoid arrest after the attack on the hotel which was crowded with Somali officials.
"Thirty people died in this ambush. Six of them are members of the Somali parliament and four are Somali government civil servants," Abdirahman Haji Adan Ibbi told reporters after the deadly rampage at Hotel Mona.
"The 20 others are innocent civilians who died in this horrible incident," he added.
An official and witnesses told an AFP reporter on the scene that two fighters from Shebab disguised as government security forces smuggled themselves into the hotel and sprayed gunfire on its occupants.
"They detonated the suicide vests they were wearing when our forces surrounded the hotel," he said on condition of anonymity.
The bold attack was the deadliest of its kind against high-ranking officials from the Western-backed transitional federal government since the Al Qaeda-inspired Shebab launched an offensive to conquer Mogadishu last year.
"They have no motive other than to terrorise the Somali people. This is a deplorable act in this holy month of Ramadan. It shows their brutality and lack of respect for humanity," Information Minister Abdirahman Omar Osman Yarisow said in a statement.
Parliament speaker Sharif Hassan Sheikh Aden condemned the attack when he spoke to AFP from Nairobi.
"We condemn this terrorist attack against the Mona hotel, in which a large number of MPs were staying," he said.
"This is the work of the Shebab, who are committed to disrupting the efforts of the transitional federal government (TFG) which is pacifying the country," Sheikh Aden said. "These terrorists acts will not stop."
The African Union mission in Somalia (AMISOM), whose more than 6,000 troops deployed in Mogadishu protect the TFG and support its military operations against the insurgency also condemned the attack.
"It is unfortunate that those opposed to the peace process continue to kill innocent civilians even during the fasting month of Ramadan which is one of the key pillars of the Islamic faith which they claim to profess," a statement said.
"Today?s attack on innocent civilians clearly demonstrates the cowardly and barbaric mindset of those opposed to the peace process and cannot be condoned," Boubacar Gaoussou Diarra, special representative of the African Union Commission Chairman for Somalia, said.
Copyright 2010 AFP Global Edition
