Gunmen on Saturday stormed Nasa-Hablod Hotel in Mogadishu, taking guests hostage and “shooting at everyone they could see”, witnesses said.
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Police Captain Mohamed Hussein said the attackers “took positions behind blast walls and sandbags; fighting is still ongoing”.
The attack comes three weeks after suspected Al-Shabaab gunmen set off an explosion and stormed another popular Mogadishu hotel, killing at least 13 people, according to security officials. The police had also confirmed that all the gunmen involved in the attack were neutralized.
Somali security forces cordoned off access to the neighbourhood in which the hotel is located.
Reports said the victims included three security guards.
Al Shabaab gunmen besieged the Ambassador hotel for more than 12 hours. It has been seen for past few years the Al-Shabab step up attacks during Ramadan.
He added: “We have rescued many people from the back door”.
Yusuf Ali, an ambulance driver, said he had evacuated 11 people injured in the attack.
Mogadishu resident Ahmed Ali said that he has stopped going to hotels because they are “death traps because they are favorite targets for al-Shabab…”
The assault, the latest by the Shabaab group targeting hotels and restaurants in recent months, was led by a suicide attacker driving a auto laden with explosives, the jihadists said in an online statement.
The attack started when a vehicle bomb was detonated.
An attack has occurred in front of a hotel in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, on Saturday afternoon, claiming the lives of at least 10 people, according to the Turkish Foreign Ministry. The attack killed at least 15 people.
The group frequently conducts suicide attacks and bombings in Somalia’s cities.
The Somali government are continuing their efforts to fight the Islamist group with the help of African Union forces. Both attacks have been claimed by al-Shabab.
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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.
