Al Shabaab News

Two car bomb blasts targeted Hotel Hayat in in the Somali capital, Mogadishu Attacks may be by al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab group The Hayat Hotel is a popular venue with lawmakers and other government officials

State news agency SONNA reported that Islamist group al Shabaab had attacked with a car bomb at the hotel entrance and armed militants. A witness, Ahmed Ali, told Reuters: "I heard a huge blast at the hotel, gunfire followed, and then clouds of smoke."

Al Shabaab is trying to remove the Western-backed central government and establish its own rule based on its strict interpretation of sharia law.

A police officer has said casualties are feared although he did not provide a figure.

About two hours later, a second blast took place in the city's Madina district.

Al Shabaab said it killed 26 Somali soldiers early on Sunday when the militants attacked a military base in a village near the port city of Kismayu. 

A senior commander in al Shabaab, Somalia`s al Qaeda-affiliated Islamist rebels, was killed last month in a US airstrike, the group said on Saturday in an online statement.

Somalia`s president said late Thursday night the country`s army was in "hot pursuit" of Islamist group al Shabaab fighters after the insurgents` assault on a military base in the Puntland region that left at least 38 people dead. 

A US Navy SEAL was killed and two troops wounded in a clash with al Shabaab militants in Somalia.

Mortar shells fired into homes in the Somali capital of Mogadishu has killed three people and wounded five, police and ambulance services said on Friday.

A car bomb exploded at a checkpoint less than a kilometre away from the presidential compound in the Somali capital Mogadishu on Tuesday, police said.

At least seven people were killed after two car bombs exploded outside a popular Mogadishu hotel Wednesday, and gunmen forced their way inside the building and opened fire, police said.

Al Shabaab, which regularly attacks Somali forces in its campaign to oust Somalia`s Western-backed government, pulled its fighters out of El Wak overnight.

Militants set off two car bombs outside a police base in Somalia's capital before gunmen stormed inside on Sunday, leaving at least 10 people dead, police said.

At least 13 people were killed today in twin bombings near UN and African Union buildings adjoining Mogadishu's airport, police said, in what the jihadist Shabaab group claimed as a suicide attack.

The attack happened at 9:30 a.m. (0630 GMT) as the buses were travelling to Mandera town from the capital Nairobi.

At least 18 civilians were killed when a roadside bomb went off on Thursday in Somalia`s Lafole town, southwest of the capital, blowing up a packed mini-bus that was passing by, police said.

The Shabaab group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement distributed through online social networks.

Local officials told Xinhua the military`s onslaught against Al Shabaab was carried out by an elite unit from the police and national army.

Kenyan police have arrested a suspected key member of an Islamist militant group that was plotting attacks similar to one in 2013 on the Westgate shopping mall that killed at least 67 people, authorities said on Tuesday.