At least five people have been killed and dozens more wounded in an attack on a hotel in the centre of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu, witnesses tell Al Jazeera.
A car bomb exploded at the main gate of the Sahafi Hotel early on Sunday morning, with attackers then storming the hotel as they exchanged gunfire with security guards.
The al-Shabab armed group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
On the frontline with al-Shabab
A second explosion occurred not long after when a suicide bomber detonated explosives inside the hotel, police said.
“Fighters with machines guns are firing at us from the rooftop of the hotel,” Major Osman Ali, a police officer, told the Reuters news agency after the second blast
The hotel, which lies in a place in the capital known as K-4, is often used by lawmakers and government officials.
-Al Jazera
