A car bomb attack and shooting at a hotel in the Somali city of Kismayut killed at least three people on Sunday before security forces ended a siege at the hotel and killed the attackers, police said.
Gunfire erupted after a vehicle packed with explosives crashed into the gate of the port city's Tawakal Hotel. The al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab militant group said it carried out the attack.
"So far three people have died and eight others have been injured, the same were taken to Kismayut hospital," said Farah Mohamed, a security officer.
Mohamed Nasi Guled, Jubbaland's deputy police chief, told Somali National Television earlier on Sunday that there had been three attackers at the hotel.
Mohamad, a security officer, said later on Sunday that security personnel had ended the siege.
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"The Twakal hotel operation has ended and all the militants inside have been killed and we have rescued many people from the hotel," he told Reuters.
Before the attack, a meeting was being held at the hotel to plan how to fight al Shabaab, the security officer said.
There were no further details on the deaths or injuries.
Mohamed Nur, a police captain, and Farah Ali, a shopkeeper in Kismayu, told Reuters that the explosion at the hotel preceded the gunfire.
Video footage from Somali National Television posted on its Twitter account shows security personnel loading one of the wounded into an ambulance.
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Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab's military operation spokesman, said the group was behind the attack, which he said was aimed at targeting Jubbaland region administrators working from the hotel.
Kismayu is the commercial capital of Jubbaland, a region of southern Somalia still partially controlled by al Shabaab.
Al Shabaab was driven out of Kismayu in 2012. The city's port had been a major source of income for the group from taxes, coal exports and taxes on weapons and other illegal imports.
In 2019, a similar attack on another hotel in Kismayu killed at least 26 people.
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The group is fighting to overthrow the central government and impose its rule based on its strict interpretation of Islamic sharia law. It has killed thousands of Somalis and hundreds of civilians across East Africa in a decade-long insurgency.
Somali security forces say they have made battlefield gains against al Shabaab in recent weeks while fighting alongside local self-defense groups, but the group has continued to carry out deadly raids.
