Mogadishu Hotel Attacked

niknik · #1 ● 03-27-2015, 12:26 PM

Somalia:

By*Reuters

March 27, 2015,*at*11:35 a.m.

MOGADISHU — At least seven people were killed on Friday when gunmen from the Islamist al Shabaab group stormed a popular hotel in the center of the Somali capital, police and the militants said.

“We are behind the Hotel Maka Al Mukaram attack and fighting is still going on inside the hotel,” Sheik Abdiasis Abu Musab, Al Shabaab’s military operations spokesman, told Reuters.

Captain Ali Hussein, a police officer, said at least seven people had been killed and a dozen wounded in the attack. “Death toll is sure to rise,” he said.

niknik · #2 ● 03-27-2015, 12:27 PM

Al Jazeera:

Seven people have been killed in an attack on a hotel popular with government officials in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, officials say.

The African Union mission to Somalia, AMISOM, confirmed to Al Jazeera that there had been an explosion followed by gunfire at the Makka al-Mukarama hotel on Friday.*

An AMISOM spokesman said al-Shabab fighters got out of a car that then exploded. The armed men then entered the hotel and gunfire was heard. The fighters took hostages, the spokesman added.

The same hotel was attacked by the al-Shabab group in November 2013.

Police told Reuters that government officials were trapped inside the hotel and that officers had surrounded the complex.

"The hotel is now fully under the control of the militants," Major Ismail Olow, a Mogadishu police officer at the scene, told Reuters. "Al-Shabab fighters are on the top of the building and inside the hotel. It is not easy for us to go in."

Al-Shabab issued a statement taking responsibility for the attack.