News about Siad Barre

During the gunfight between Somali forces and the militants, the hotel's main building sustained significant damage, prompting some areas of it to fall and leaving many people homeless for their loved ones who were inside when the attack began. During the siege, which ended about midnight, police commissioner Abdi Hassan Mohamed Hijar told reporters that security forces had rescued '106 people, including children and women.' As bullets and fires tore through the hotel, security forces searched the house to protect civilians, including three young children who hid inside a toilet.

A police official said today that at least 12 civilians were killed in an Islamist terrorist assault on a famous hotel in the Somali capital, as security forces continued to combat gunmen barricaded inside. In a hail of gunfire and bomb explosions, fighters from Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab stormed the Hayat Hotel in Mogadishu yesterday evening, trapping scores of people. Early Saturday, spotgunshots and booming explosions could still be heard. It's the biggest attack in Mogadishu since Somalia's new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, was elected in May after months of political uncertainty.