• Kenya: At least 15 dead in an attack claimed by Al Shabab to a hotel complex in Nairobi

At least two civilians and three soldiers were killed in an attack by the Somali jihadist group Al Shabab against a hotel in Mogadishu in which five terrorists were killed, government sources confirmed Wednesday.

The terrorists took the hotel "Somali Youth League" (SYL) for about six hours, said government spokesman Ismael Mukhtar, who announced the end of the military operation shortly before two in the morning local time (23.00 GMT).

The attack began around 7:00 p.m. Tuesday (4:00 p.m. GMT), when five jihadists disguised as police officers fired indiscriminately and threw hand grenades.

As confirmed by Twitter the police commissioner Zakia Hussein, "two of the attackers were killed (by security guards) outside the hotel" while the rest managed to enter the premises, where the presentation of a book with more than 70 took place assistants, among other acts.

Somali security forces killed the other three jihadists inside the establishment and evacuated "more than a hundred people, including government officials and civilians," according to sources from the Somali Ministry of Information.

The terrorist group Al Shabab claimed this attack while it was happening, confirming that their suicide command (inghimasi) was carrying out "a planned siege" at the SYL hotel.

This popular hotel is located in the immediate vicinity of the presidential palace, is usually frequented by members of Parliament and since 2013 has undergone numerous attacks.

In August 2016, another bomb attack perpetrated by Al Shabab in this establishment caused 22 deaths, and at the end of February of that same year at least 14 people lost their lives in a jihadist assault during which a car bomb exploded.

Mogadishu often suffers attacks by Al Shabab, a terrorist organization that joined the international al Qaeda network in 2012 and controls part of central and southern Somalia, where it aspires to establish an Islamic state of the Wahhabi (ultraconservative) court.

On December 6, eleven people were killed after being forced by members of Al Shabab to leave the bus in which they were traveling through Wajir County in northeastern Kenya - where the jihadists also attack - and bordering on Somalia.

Somalia lives in a state of conflict and chaos since 1991, when dictator Mohamed Siad Barré was overthrown, which left the country without effective government and in the hands of Islamist militias and warlords.

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