At least 22 people were killed in a suicide bombing in Somalia

MOGADISHU – Terrorists set two car bombs on fire in a Mogadishu hotel in Somalia on Friday, killing at least 22 people, police said.

The militant Islamist Al-Shabaab group, linked to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack on the Sahafi hotel, located near the headquarters of Somalia's Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

Hotel guards and CID agents opened fire after the blasts, the police added. About 20 minutes later, a third explosion of a bomb placed in a three-wheeled vehicle near the hotel hit the busy street, witnesses said.

"Four activists who tried to enter the hotel were shot dead by our police and hotel guards," said police captain Mohamed Ahmed. Reuters.

"Two other militants were suicide bombers who were destroyed by their car bomb. The third car was destroyed from a distance. In total, 28 people died, including the six activists.

Abdifatah Abdirashid, who succeeded Sahafi after the death of his father in a bombing in 2015, is among the victims of the attack on Friday, said Mohamed Abdiqani, a witness at the hotel.

"The activists who entered the hotel compound were heavily fired on by the hotel guards. Abdifatah Abdirashid, the hotel owner, and three of his bodyguards are dead, "Abdiqani said.

A Reuters The photographer on the spot saw 20 bodies of civilians and minibuses, motorcycles and cars burned.

Abdiasisi Abu Musab, Al Shabaab's spokesman for the military operations, said the group had targeted the Sahafi as the target of an attack because of its badociation with the government that the Islamists wanted to overthrow.

"We targeted it because it acts as the basis of the government. Government officials and security forces are still in the hotel, "he told Reuters.

Somalia has been rife with violence and lawlessness since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was overthrown in the early 1990s.