Mogadishu - Somali security forces shot
dead five al-Shabaab gunmen, who had killed three civilians and
two soldiers during an attack on a hotel near the presidential
residence in Mogadishu on Tuesday night, police said early on
Wednesday.
Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda linked Islamist militant group,
frequently launches bombing and gun raids in Mogadishu in a bid
to topple Somalia's UN-backed government. The group confirmed
last night it had attacked the Syl hotel, a popular gathering
place for officials and lawmakers.
The latest attack started at around 7 p.m. on Tuesday and
ended at about 1 a.m. on Wednesday, when all five attackers had
been killed, deputy police commissioner General Zakia Hussen
said in a statement on Twitter.
"The security forces ended the operation. Five people
including three civilians and two soldiers died in the attack,"
Hussen said.
"Eleven others were slightly injured, including nine
civilians and two soldiers," she added.
Hussen had said on Tuesday night that 82 people, including
several officials, had been rescued from the Syl
hotel.
Security officers had initially mistook the gunmen for the
police, until they began shooting and throwing grenades, another
police officer said on Tuesday.
Al-Shabaab's military spokesman Abdiaziz Abu Musab said on
Tuesday that the group's fighters were behind the attack at the
hotel compound near the presidential palace.
Somalia, in the Horn of Africa, has been embroiled in
conflict and chaos since 1991, when clan-based warlords
overthrew a dictator then turned on each other.
Al-Shabaab, which once controlled much of the country, was
forced out of Mogadishu in 2011 and has since lost most of its
other strongholds. But its fighters regularly attack sites in
Somalia and neighbouring Kenya, which has troops in Somalia.