Somalian deputy PM injured in deadly suicide blast

Somalia’s deputy prime minister and at least 11 people have been killed in a suicide bomb attack on a hotel near the presidents’ palace in the capital of Mogadishu.

A palace official said that at least 25 people have been killed and that they expect the number to rise due to the severity of the injuries sustained by some of the wounded.

Islamist group Al-Shabab have claimed responsibility for the attack on their radio station Andalus.

One attacker drove a vehicle laden with explosives into the hotel gate, while another entered the hotel and blew himself up, Capt Muhammad Hussein told the Associated Press.

The deputy prime minister Mohamed Omar Arte was one of several high-ranking government officials at the hotel at the time of the attack. He has since been rushed to hospital.

“The building was badly hit, the explosion was very big, and I saw the bodies of 11 people carried away,” police officer Abulrahman Ali told Agence France-Presse. “There were very many wounded people too, many of them seriously.”

This is the second attack on a hotel in Mogadishu in less than a month. Last month, a suicide car bomber blew himself up at the gate of a hotel housing the advance party of Turkish president Recep Erdogan in an attack that killed three Somali nationals.