Mogadishu

Somalia's Al-Qaeda-linked Shebab insurgents killed at least 25 people on Feb. 20 in an attack on a popular hotel in the capital Mogadishu where government ministers and officials were holding Friday prayers.
      

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an visited the Somali capital of Mogadishu yesterday, under tight security to launch Turkish-sponsored development projects including an airport terminal.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an arrived in war-torn Somalia on Jan. 25 amid tight security, a rare visit by a foreign leader to the war-torn nation.
      
Hundreds of soldiers and police officers had shut down much of the capital's streets, where on Jan. 22 five people were killed in a suicide attack on a hotel housing the Turkish delegation in Mogadishu.
      

Foreign leaders gathered in a cavernous mosque in the Saudi Arabian capital on Jan. 23 for the funeral of King Abdullah.
      
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an, Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the leaders of Sudan and Ethiopia joined Gulf rulers for the funeral prayer at Riyadh's Imam Turki bin Abdullah mosque.

An attack against a hotel in the Somali capital of Mogadishu on Jan. 22 killed five people, including two suicide bombers, on the eve of Turkish President Tayyip Erdo?an?s visit to Somalia. A Turkish delegation preparing for Erdo?an?s visit has been staying at the hotel, in front of which a Turkish flag had been raised. Yet another terrorist attack to be condemned...

Preparations are continuing for President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an?s scheduled visit to Somalia, despite the Jan. 22 suicide attack in Mogadishu, Turkish Ambassador to Mogadishu Olgan Bekar has said.

No causalities are reported from the Turkish delegation, but one Turkish official was slightly wounded in the explosion, Bekar told the Hürriyet Daily News.

A suicide car bomb exploded at the gate of a Mogadishu hotel where Turkish delegates were meeting on Jan. 22, a day ahead of a visit by President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an to the Somali capital.
 
"The Turkish delegates are safe inside the hotel," police captain Farah Nur told Reuters. "The hotel was busy."

UN chief Ban Ki-moon met the president of Somalia, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, under heavy security Oct. 29 in Mogadishu, his first visit to the dangerous capital of the war-torn nation in almost three years.
      

Internationally-funded African Union troops in war-torn and impoverished Somalia have raped women and traded food aid for sex, Human Rights Watch said in a damning report on Sept. 8.
      
"Some of the women who were raped said that the soldiers gave them food or money afterwards in an apparent attempt to frame the assault as transactional sex," the HRW report said.

The leader of the Somali Islamist group al-Shabab, Ahmed Abdi Godane, was killed following a US attack earlier this week, the Pentagon has said, Friday.