UPDATE

Official: 9 dead in hotel attack in Somalia

ABDI GULED, Associated Press

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — At least nine people were killed and 10 injured when Islamic extremists attacked a hotel in the Somali capital Mogadishu, a police official said Sunday.

The attack started at dawn when a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle laden with explosives at the gate of the Sahafi Hotel and then gunmen on foot shot at people in the hotel, Capt. Mohamed Hussein said.

"They have killed the owner of the hotel, a former military general, and other officials during the attack," Hussein said by phone frome the scene as gunfire could be heard in the hotel.

"There's a hostage situation inside the hotel," Hussein said.

Al-Shabab, the Islamic extremist rebels waging an insurgency against Somalia's weak U.N.- backed government, claimed responsibility for the attack on a website associated with the group. Fighters from the al-Qaeda linked group infiltrated the hotel after the blast, said the statement.

Somali troops and African Union forces were at the scene of the attack, according to a post on Twitter by the African Union Mission in Somalia, which has deployed troops to bolster Somalia's government against al-Shabab's insurgency.

The hotel is often frequented by Somali government officials and business executives and it has been targeted before. Two French security advisers were abducted from the hotel by militants in 2009.

-- (c) Associated Press 2015-11-01

Islamist al Shabaab attack Somali hotel, kill at least eight

By Abdi Sheikh and Feisal Omar

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Two bombs ripped into a hotel in the center of the Somali capital on Sunday morning and police fought Islamist al Shabaab gunmen who stormed inside the building, police and witnesses said. At least eight people were killed.

Al Shabaab, which has frequently launched attacks in Mogadishu in its bid to topple the Western-backed government, said it was behind the assault on the Sahafi hotel where government officials and lawmakers stay.

"Mujahideen (fighters) entered and took over Sahafi hotel where enemies lived. The operation still goes on," Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab's military operations spokesman, told Reuters.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/blast-somali-capital-followed-gunfire-witness-030019839.html

-- Reuters 2015-11-01

Sounds like a nice hotel to visit if it goes by its past,