Al Shabab terror group claims responsibility for the attack, which targeted Jubbaland region’s administrators.
A car bomb and shooting attack on a hotel in Somalia’s Kismayo city has killed at least three people, police said.
Gunfire erupted after an explosives-laden vehicle rammed into the gate of the port city’s Tawakal Hotel on Sunday.
“So far there are three people dead and eight others injured, who were taken to Kismayu hospital,” Farah Mohamed, a security officer told Reuters from Kismayu.
“There is a blast at Tawakal hotel and there is gunfire being heard,” Mohamed Nur, a police captain, said earlier on Sunday.
Witnesses also said a huge blast was heard before the gunfire started.
“The security forces have besieged the scene,” Farah Ali, a shopkeeper in Kismayu, said.
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The state-run Somali National Television said on Twitter
security forces were dealing with a “terrorist incident” at the
hotel.
The Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabab terror group said it had carried out the attack.
The group’s spokesperson Abdiasis Abu Musab said the target was Jubbaland region’s administrators who work from the hotel.
Al Shabab attacks
Kismayu is the commercial capital of Jubbaland, a region of southern Somalia still partly controlled by Al Shabab. The group was driven out of Kismayu in 2012.
Despite being ousted from Somalia’s major cities, including the capital Mogadishu in 201, Al Shabab controls swathes of the countryside and civilians are often caught in the crossfire.
READ MORE: Al Shabab co-founder killed in joint operation: Somalia
Among the group’s string of recent attacks was a suicide attack that killed two people including a soldier in central Somalia on Wednesday.
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s government has faced a sharp increase in Al Shabab activity since his election in May and has promised to wage “war” against them.
After Mohamud’s election, President Joe Biden said he would restore a US military presence in Somalia to fight Al Shabab.
Source: TRTWorld and agencies
Somalia hotel attack: Car bomb, shooting leaves several dead
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