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Over a dozen killed in al-Shabab attack on Mogadishu hotel

The siege follows similar instances of al-Shabab attacks on hotels in Mogadishu, including last month when the group killed 25 people at the Central Hotel, including two members of Somalia's parliament and the deputy mayor of Mogadishu.

By Fred Lambert

MOGADISHU, Somalia, March 28 (UPI) -- Somali soldiers brought an end Saturday to a siege by al-Shabab militants of a Mogadishu hotel frequented by foreigners and government officials, according to multiple reports.

At least 14 people -- including the Somali ambassador to Switzerland, Yusuf Baribari -- were killed in the ordeal, which began Friday when a group of armed men exited a car outside of the Maka al-Mukarama hotel and stormed the building after the vehicle exploded.

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The 12-hour siege, which reportedly wounded 28 others, ended Saturday when U.S.-trained Somali special forces stormed the building. Journalists reported seeing bodies of militants and soldiers at the scene, and some diplomats jumped from windows to escape death. One such person told Al Jazeera that the militants were killing people indiscriminately.

Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the assault. "We don't consider it to be a hotel -- it's a government base," a spokesman from the group told the BBC.

The siege follows an attack by the group on a luxury hotel in the same city last month. The late February assault on the Central Hotel in Mogadishu also began with a car bomb and armed fighters storming the complex, killing 25 people, including two members of Somalia's parliament and the deputy mayor of Mogadishu.

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In January al-Shabab claimed credit for a car bombing outside a hotel near the presidential palace in Mogadishu that killed five Somali security officers and a hotel employee the day before a scheduled visit by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Al-Shabab is an al-Qaida affiliate that seized a large portion of southern Somalia in 2006 before its defeat by Somali and Ethiopian troops the following year. Since then it has waged a bloody insurgency in the region, claiming credit for a series of bombings and other attacks.

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