Suicide Bombing in Somalia Leaves at Least Four Dead

Between four and 20 people have been killed and many injured in a suicide bombing of a hotel in Somalia's capital Mogadishu, international news outlets reported on Friday.

Mogadishu's deputy mayor Mohamed Aden and a Somali member of parliament were among those killed, AP reported.

One attacker rammed a vehicle laden with explosives into the gate of the hotel, then another suicide bomber entered the hotel and detonated his vest.

Deputy Prime Minister Mohamed Omar Arte was among those wounded and was rushed to hospital. He and several other high-ranking government officials were at  the Central Hotel near the presidential palace at the time of the attack.

Al-Shabab, an Islamic insurgent group, claimed responsibility for the attack. Despite suffering major setbacks last year, al-Shabab, which is linked to al-Qaeda, continues to wage a deadly guerrilla insurgency against Somalia's government and remains a threat in the country and the East African region.

The Islamicmilitants have been driven out of Somalia's  major towns but still control many rural areas in the south. The group aims to topple the Western-backed federal government and impose its strict version of Islamic sharia law on the country that is struggling to recover after two decades of war.

Somalia's president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud condemned the bombing, saying in a statement: "We shall continue the anti-terrorism war, this attack makes clear that terrorists don't have any respect for the peaceful religion of Islam by killing innocent Muslims."