Police in Somalia say a suspected car bomb has exploded outside a hotel in Mogadishu, killing at least six people.
Witnesses say a suicide bomber drove a car packed with explosives Friday to the gate of the hotel, which is popular with Somali officials, in central Mogadishu.
A government spokesman told VOA’s Somali service that at least 15 people were wounded, including a member of the Somali parliament Soyan Abdi Warsame.
Reports say another explosion was heard in the same area shortly before the hotel attack.
Somali Prime Minister Abdi Farah Shirdon condemned the violence and said it will not derail the progress toward peace in Somalia.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blasts, but al-Shabab militants periodically carry out bomb attacks in Mogadishu.
Al-Shabab once controlled most of the Somali capital, but the group was driven out of Mogadishu and other major Somali cities by an African Union-led peacekeeping force.
The al-Qaida-linked group is still considered a threat. In September, al-Shabab claimed responsibility for an assault on a shopping mall in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, that killed more than 60 people.
Source: VOA
