Al-Shabab lays siege to a hotel in Somalia capital, many feared dead

MOGADISHU, Somalia - The Somalia-based Al-Qaeda-linked militant group Al-Shabab claimed a bombing and siege of a hotel in downtown Mogadishu on Sunday as the Horn of Africa nation in pre-election crisis.

Armed Al-Shabaab militants detonated a car bomb outside Afrik hotel around the airport and stormed the building amid the presence of military generals and government officials for a meeting at the time.

“The attackers detonated a car bomb outside the hotel on Sunday afternoon at about 5 pm before storming it and seizing peoples as hostages,” witness Asha Ahmed, told Garowe Online by phone.

She said the initial blast was heard across Mogadishu and there was chaos as people fled the area as Somali Security forces sealed off the hotel and exchanged fire with the Al-Shabaab gunmen holed inside.

The hotel owner and retired military general Mohamed Nur Galal were among dozens of people rescued by the security forces, according to the police sources.

The casualties are yet unknown and the gunmen are still fighting inside while the rescue operation was underway to evacuate the people trapped inside.

Al-Shabaab has been waging a brutal insurgency in Somalia for more than a decade, trying to oust the UN-backed Somali government and expel AU forces from the country.

It has been pushed out of Mogadishu by government and African Union troops in 2011, but the group still carries out bombings and assassinations in the city.

Over the past months attacks by the terror group have increased in the capital due to the lax in security with government leaders focusing on their re-election campaign.

GAROWE ONLINE