Somali minister among 15 killed in extremist attack on hotel

A group of gunmen launched a coordinated attack on a hotel in the Somali capital of Mogadishu on Saturday, leaving at least 15 people dead and 25 others injured, according to police.

Hussein said the security forces had killed two of the attackers.

Security forces pursued the assailants to the top floor of the hotel before bringing the hours-long assault to an end late Saturday, the Associated Press reported.

Somalia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and Investment Promotion has confirmed the death of his colleague minister, Burci M. Hamza in the al Shabaab attack on a hotel on Saturday evening.

President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has condemned the attack, the second by al-Shabab in Somalia during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Somali security forces moved quickly to cordon off access to the neighbourhood as they raced to retake the hotel, an AFP photographer said.

The attack started when a vehicle bomb was detonated.

The terror group took over social media platforms to claim responsibility for the attack.

At least four gunmen were involved in the assault, police said.

“The operation has now ended but we are still combing the building for any possible militants who are hiding”, Major Ali Mohamed, a police officer, told Reuters. They include an attack on a Kenyan university past year that killed 148 people, majority Christian students; and an attack on a Nairobi shopping mall in 2013 that killed 67. “Some of them died in the hospitals”, Hussein said. Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility.

“Members from the raiding brigades carried out a pre-planned attack on Nasa Hablood hotel in Mogadishu, and the mujahideen fighters have managed to fully take control of the hotel”, said an al-Shabab statement read on the local Radio Andalus station.

Blood was splattered on the hotel floor. Reports by the Somali National News Agency said that the siege had ended the next day. The attack killed at least 15 people.

The government, with the help of African Union forces, is fighting al-Shabab militants in several parts of the country.

The mission is under strain after Uganda announced on Friday it would withdraw 6,000 troops by the end of 2017 after the European Union cut its funding for the mission in Somalia by 20 percent.