Police enter Somalia said Saturday that 32 people died and 63 others were injured in an attack on a beach hotel in the capital Mogadishu the night before.
Al Qaeda branch in East Africa, al-Shabaabsaid over its radio that its fighters carried out the attack.
Police spokesperson Maj Abdifatah Adan Hassan told journalists that one soldier was killed in the attack and the rest were civilians. Another soldier was also injured in the attack, Hassan said. Witnesses reported an explosion followed by gunfire.
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Lido Beach, a popular area in Mogadishu, is bustling on Friday nights as Somalis enjoy their weekend.
A witness, Mohamud Moalim, told The Associated Press that he saw an attacker wearing an explosive vest moments before the man “blowed himself up next to the hotel overlooking the beach.”
Moalim said some of his friends who were with him at the hotel were killed and others injured.
Another witness, Abdisalam Adam, told the AP that he “saw many people lying on the ground” and had helped take some injured to hospital.
The Lido Beach area has previously been targeted by militants allied to al-Shabab. The most recent attack last year killed nine people.
In a separate attack on Saturday, state media reported that seven people died after a passenger vehicle hit a roadside bomb about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the capital.
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Al-Shabab still controls parts of southern and central Somalia and continues to carry out attacks in Mogadishu and other areas while extorting millions of dollars a year from residents and businesses in its quest to impose an Islamic state.
Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud last year declared a “total war” against the militants as the country began to take responsibility for its own security.
Friday’s attack comes a month after Somalia began the third phase of the drawdown of peacekeeping troops under the African Union Transitional Mission.