Somali police announced that the country's security forces ended a more than 20-hours-long al-Shabab siege on a popular hotel in the capital, Mogadishu. Police said they killed five militants while eight civilians were killed during the attack.
In a press conference in Mogadishu on Monday evening, Somali federal police spokesman Sadik Adan Ali Dodishe said security forces have ended the Villa Rays hotel siege in the capital.
The hotel, located near the country's heavily fortified presidential palace, was attacked by al-Shabab fighters who started the assault with a suicide bombing.
The police spokesman said security forces killed five of the six attackers while one of them blew himself up. He said the militants killed eight civilians who were at the hotel and security forces rescued 60 civilians. There were no civilian injuries.
The police representative added that during the operation inside the hotel, one soldier was killed and five others wounded.
The Villa Rays hotel is frequented by Somali government senior officials, including ministers, lawmakers and other security officials.
Experts who spoke to VOA over the phone said they believe the attack can be seen as retaliation by the group after it lost significant ground in the Somali government's recent offensives against the Islamist militants in the country's central provinces.
It is the second deadly siege in Somali capital in less than three months.
In late August, the militant group had stormed the busy Hayat hotel. Security forces ended that siege after nearly 30 hours of operations. The attack killed more than 20 people.
The group intensified its attacks after Somalia's President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was elected in May this year and announced a "total war" against the militants.
