Police say the expiry terms inwards a truck bombing at a hotel inwards Somalia's majuscule is straight off 23 afterward rescue workers institute the bodies of a adult woman as well as iii children, including a baby.
All were shot inwards the head, Captain Mohamed Hussein told AP.
Police say attackers entered the hotel afterward the bombing inwards Mogadishu, as well as a gunbattle alongside safety forces continued at that spot like shooting fish in a barrel on Saturday.
Following the blasts, witnesses reported hearing gunfire at the Nasa Hablod Hotel 2 which was sealed off past times safety forces alongside gunmen believed to live inside, AFP reported.
Police convey said to a greater extent than than twenty people, including authorities officials, are idea to live trapped inside.
"Security forces are withal working to ensure the expanse is clear," said safety official Mohamed Moalim Adan.
He said "sporadic gunfire" was continuing alongside at to the lowest degree ii gunmen from the Shabaab Islamist grouping believed to live within the hotel. One senior police line official as well as a quondam MP were amidst the dead.
The onslaught came ii weeks afterward a massive truck bomb exploded inwards primal Mogadishu, killing at to the lowest degree 358 people, making it the deadliest onslaught inwards the troubled country's history.
The Al-Qaeda-affiliated Shabaab claimed Saturday's bombing as well as hotel assail inwards a controversy on its Andalus radio station.
"The Mujahedeen fighters are within Nasa Hablod 2 hotel where... apostate officials are staying," said the brief statement.
Mogadishu's Aamin ambulance service removed bodies from the scene as well as evacuated 17 wounded, its manager Abdukadir Abdurahman said.
Police official Ibrahim Mohamed said the onslaught started when a car bomb went off at the entrance to the hotel field "a minibus loaded alongside explosives" was detonated at a nearby intersection.
Gunfire within the hotel
Witnesses as well as then reported hearing shooting from within the hotel.
"We tin bespeak heed the gunfire but it is hard to know who is fighting, the forces cordoned off the edifice as well as no 1 tin larn to a greater extent than or less it," said Abdulahi Nure.
Fellow witness Ismail Muktar said, "We tin bespeak heed sporadic gunfire as well as grenade blasts as well as the expanse is real night because the electrical business was cutting off amid the blast."
"Most people fled the hotel through a dorsum door but some are withal trapped inside," said Mohamed Dek, who was escaped the hotel afterward the initial explosion.
"I was real lucky," he added.
The Nasa Hablod 2 is a pop hotel located inwards the northward of the metropolis whose sis hotel, the Nasa Hablod, was striking past times Shabaab militants inwards June 2016, inwards an onslaught that killed eleven people, including a junior minister.
The Shabaab has made attacks on hotels -- normally kickoff alongside a suicide car bombing followed past times an invasion past times gunmen -- a regular strategy inwards its decade old battle to overthrow successive internationally-backed governments inwards Mogadishu.
The Shabaab lost their foothold inwards Mogadishu inwards 2011 but convey continued their fight, launching regular attacks on military, authorities as well as civilian targets inwards the majuscule as well as elsewhere.
AFP