adminA huge explosion and gunfire have been reported at a hotel in the Somali capital, killing at least 10 people.
Al-Shabab fighters claimed responsibility for yesterday’s attack targeting Mogadishu’s Ambassador Hotel, which is frequented by diplomats.“We attacked the hotel with a car bomb and we went inside. We shall give details later,” Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shabab’s military operations spokesman, said.Mogadishu police said some fighters had apparently burst into the hotel.
The attack happened shortly before the arrival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Mogadishu.
Mohammed Adow, reporting from Nairobi in neighbouring Kenya, said Ambassador Hotel is located along the road Erdogan “was supposed to take from the airport to the presidential palace”.
Adow also reported that the attack “has the signature of al-Shabab”.
In February, at least nine people were killed when al-Shabab fighters set off a car bomb at the gate of a popular park near a hotel in the capital. In January, an attack on a beach-front restaurant killed at least 17 people.
Al Shabaab, which seeks to topple Somalia’s government, was driven out of Mogadishu by the African Union force AMISOM in 2011, and last year was ousted from strongholds elsewhere in the south by AMISOM and the Somali National Army. — AFP
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