No less than four individuals were killed on Sunday when Somalia's al Shabaab Islamist militants drove a car stuffed with explosives at the door of a hotel, police and the dissident gathering said.
Sources said blood and bits of tissue were splashed around the site of the impact which focused on the Jazeera inn. The destruction of four autos were adjacent.
Al Shabaab, which said it was behind the impact, every now and again dispatches bomb and weapon assaults in the capital in its bid to topple Somalia's Western-upheld government. The country is attempting to rebuild following two years of contention and disorder.
"It is a response to attacks and helicopter bombing against al Shabaab by AMISOM and the Somali government," Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab's military operations spokesman, told Reuters.
AMISOM, the African Union's force in Somalia, has been battling the Islamist rebels with the Somali army. Al Shabaab has been pushed into increasingly smaller pockets of territory by a military offensive this year.
Major Nur Osoble, a police officer, told Reuters a suicide car bomb rammed the gates of the hotel, damaging the facade. Another senior
police officer said at least four people were killed, while an ambulance worker said eight were wounded.
Jazeera hotel has been targeted on previous occasions. The blast on Sunday sent a plume of smoke rising above the coastal capital. Sporadic gunfire was heard shortly after the attack.
Al Shabaab, which wants to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on Somalia, killed a lawmaker, his bodyguard and an official from the prime minister's office on two attacks on Saturday.
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