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No fewer than nine people have been killed after an explosion at a hotel in Mogadishu, Somali capital, Al Jazeera reports.
The African Union mission to Somalia (AMISOM) confirmed to Al Jazeera that gunfire at Makka al-Mukarama hotel on Friday, March 27, followed the explosion.
Terror group, Al-Shabab have claimed responsibility for the attack.
A spokesman for AMISOM said that the al-Shabab fighters, who took hostages, got out of a car that then exploded. They then entered the hotel and gunfire was heard.
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‘At least four gunmen trapped an unknown number of people inside the building,’ a security official, Captain Mohamed Hussein, told the Associated Press news agency.
Some people jumped out of the hotel's windows, and one who made it safely outside said the attackers were killing anyone they could find.
Somalia's ambassador to Switzerland, Yusuf Mohamed Baribari, was also killed in the attack, medical sources told Al Jazeera.
The group attacked the same hotel, which is popular with government officials and foreigners, in November 2013.