Gunmen stormed an upscale hotel where politicians and government officials frequently hold meetings in Mogadishu, Somalia, killing twenty people and wounding fifty, in a continuing crisis as they’ve taken hostages, police on the scene say, CNN reports.
Police have retaken the lobby and the top floor from the terrorists, but the gunmen are holed up on the middle two floors of the four-story hotel with their hostages. The al Qaeda-affiliated group Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for the attack on its affiliated websites.
The Biden Administration has made supporting the government of Somalia a priority as it refocuses its foreign policy on Africa, a continent all but abandoned during the Trump years, when Trump announced it was pulling all US troops out of Somalia. The US maintained a contingent of military operations in Somalia to secure shipping routes around the Horn of Africa and in the Arabia and Red Seas.