Mogadishu: Insurgents in army uniforms stormed a hotel in the Somali capital Mogadishu frequented by government officials on Tuesday, killing at least 31 people including legislators, the government said.
The hardline Al Shabaab Islamists who have been fighting for three years to oust the fragile Western-backed "transitional government", and control most of the city, claimed the attack.
The Information Ministry said the 31 dead included six members of parliament and five government security personnel.
"The blood of the dead is leaking out of the hotel," Information Minister Abdirahman Osman said.
The assault underscored the failure of the government and more than 6,300 mostly Ugandan African Union peacekeepers to bring order after nearly two decades of anarchy, making Somalia a continual source of instability for east Africa.
Last month Al Shabaab expanded its reach as far as Uganda, claiming a double suicide bombing of packed bars in the capital Kampala, to put pressure on it to pull its troops out.
Those attacks killed more than 70 people and jolted the African Union into increasing the peacekeeping contingent and considering giving it a mandate to fight the rebels.
Yesterday Al Shabaab spokesman Shaikh Ali Mohammad Rage told reporters in Mogadishu that its fighters had "carried out an operation at Hotel Muna" and succeeded in killing government and intelligence officials, MPs and civil servants.
