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Two car bombs exploded between the Sahafi hotel and another behind the hotel, police told CNN.
Colonel Qasim Ahmed Roble, spokesman for the Somali police, told reporters that five attackers had attempted to storm the hotel but had been shot dead by police.
Fifty-two Somali officials were rescued from the Sahafi Hotel and the Hayat Hotel, he said.
Abdiaziz Ibrahim, a former spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, who was at the scene, told CNN that the attacks had lasted 20 minutes and had occurred "one after the other".
One of the victims was the owner of the hotel, said Ibrahim.
"The perpetrators of the attack wore the uniform of the police, but they were Al Shabab attackers," he said.
"Such reprehensible terrorist acts will in no way affect the resolve of the Somali people to pursue their priorities of state-building, economic recovery and security," said the Special Representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations. For Somalia, Raisedon Zenenga, in a statement.
