A massive explosion followed by the sounds of gunfire occurred outside a Mogadishu hotel near the city's airport on Saturday, Somali police and witnesses said.
Freelance journalists in Mogadishu tweeted that the Hotel Nasa Hablod was under attack, with The Associated Press saying gunmen were fighting inside the hotel.
"There is heavy fire going on inside the hotel, it started after the massive explosion, but we cannot know what is going on," Abdihafid Mudey, who lives near the hotel, told the French news agency AFP.
The cause of the explosion was not immediately known, but AP reported it was a car bomb.
While no group had yet claimed responsibility for the attack, the Islamist militant group al-Shabab has frequently carried out similar attacks in Mogadishu.
VOA's Harun Maruf contributed to this report.
via Voice of America http://ift.tt/28TMnzD
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