Somali security forces have ended the deadly siege of a hotel by the militant al-Shabab group in the capital city.  

The takeover of the Maka al-Mukarama Hotel in Mogadishu ended early Saturday.

Somali information Minister Mohamed Abdi Mareye said government forces retook the hotel at around 8:30 a.m. Saturday Mogadishu time (0530 UTC).

He told reporters 20 people were killed, including soldiers, hotel security guards, six civilians and all six attackers, while another 28 people were wounded.

Gurey Haji Hassan, the co-owner and manager of the hotel, said the gunmen entered through the back door after detonating the bomb and seized control of the facility.

Somali government special forces known as the Gashaan entered the hotel to hunt down and fight the gunmen. Some of the attackers are known to have been killed.

Hotel guests locked themselves in their rooms and called security forces to tell them where they are located.

The hotel is popular with politicians, members of parliament and Somalis from the diaspora, and has been attacked on at least three previous occasions.

An official at Mogadishu’s Medina hospital told VOA’s Somali service that Somalia’s ambassador to Switzerland, Yusuf Mohamed Ismail Bari Bari, was brought to the hospital with serious injuries from the attack and later died.

Also killed was a Somali-American woman from Virginia who returned to Somalia last year to work as a consultant with the Somali central bank.  Relatives told VOA that Farhiya Bashir Nur was in the hotel at the time of the attack.

Mohamed Tifow, Somalia’s ambassador to Germany, was rescued by the country’s security forces from his hotel apartment.

“I was not harmed,” he said. “Thank God the Somali national security forces came to my rescue, brought me a ladder and rescued me from my apartment.”

Hassan said local officials had downplayed security threats against the hotel.

“I have been refused [permission] to erect a roadblock outside,” he said. 

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for Friday’s attack soon after it began.  The al-Qaida-linked group is known for assaults on large buildings, such as the Westgate mall in Nairobi in 2013, and Somalia’s presidential palace, which it attacked twice last year.
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