{"id":26394,"date":"2016-06-27T01:49:47","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T01:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/somalia-tributes-to-minister-killed-in-al-shabab\/"},"modified":"2016-06-27T01:49:20","modified_gmt":"2016-06-27T01:49:20","slug":"somalia-tributes-to-minister-killed-in-al-shabab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/somalia-tributes-to-minister-killed-in-al-shabab\/","title":{"rendered":"Somalia: Tributes to minister killed in al-Shabab hotel attack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Tributes have been paid to a Somali minister who was among those killed in an attack by the Islamist group al-Shabab on a popular hotel in Mogadishu.}<\/p>\n<p>Militants detonated a car bomb outside the Naso-Hablod hotel, before storming it and taking hostages on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>The UN envoy in Somalia described Environment Minister Buri Mohamed Hamza as &#8220;passionate advocate&#8221;. He was among at least 15 people killed at the hotel.<\/p>\n<p>Al-Shabab launches frequent attacks in a bid to oust the UN-backed government.<br \/>\nWitnesses said the militants shot randomly at guests in the hotel, often used by politicians and tourists.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Keating, the UN special representative in Somalia, condemned the &#8220;atrocious attack&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The death of minister Hamza is very saddening. He was a passionate advocate for Somalia&#8217;s natural environment and was fighting against its degradation,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\nTributes were also paid by Somalia&#8217;s foreign ministry.<\/p>\n<p>Among the dead were also some of the attackers, security guards and civilians, including women who were working outside the hotel, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>Police said at least four men were involved in the assault.<\/p>\n<p>Al-Shabab said it targeted the hotel &#8220;frequented by the apostate government members&#8221;, Reuters news agency reported.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this month at least 10 people were killed and 50 injured in an attack on another hotel in the Somali capital, which was claimed by al-Shabab.<\/p>\n<p>The al-Qaeda-linked group was driven from Mogadishu in 2011 but still remains a threat and frequently carries out attacks in the city.<\/p>\n<p>The government, with the help of African Union forces, is fighting al-Shabab militants in several parts of the country.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-13052 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_90105329_fa1f643d-60f1-423c-ae3d-9cb4af7a52dd.jpg\" alt=\"Building was badly damaged after the car bomb explosion\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Tributes have been paid to a Somali minister who was among those killed in an attack by the Islamist group al-Shabab on a popular hotel in Mogadishu.} Militants detonated a car bomb outside the Naso-Hablod hotel, before storming it and taking hostages on Saturday. The UN envoy in Somalia described Environment Minister Buri Mohamed Hamza [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-26394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26394"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=26394"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=26394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}