article_snippet: The hotel, located in Somalia's capital, is popular with government officials,with Islamic extremist group Islamist group al Shabaab claiming responsibility while the attack was ongoing.
article_snippet: Al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab issued a statement taking responsibility for the blitz. '
article_snippet: Al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab are behind the attack, and fighting is still going on inside,' the group's military spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab said yesterday.
article_snippet: Al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab are on the top of the building and inside the hotel.
article_snippet: Al Qaeda-linked group Al Qaeda-linked al Shabaab regularly carries out attacks in the Somali capital in a bid to unseat the country's Western-backed government .
article_snippet: al-Shabaab routinely carries out suicide bombings, drive-by shootings and other attacks in Mogadishu, the seat of Somalia's Western-backed government.
article_snippet: militants have continued to launch attacks in Mogadishu despite being ousted from militants bases in the seaside city in 2011.
article_snippet: al-Shabaab was pushed out of the Somali capital by African peacekeeping forces, but have waged a series of gun and grenade attacks, looking to overthrow the country's Western-backed government and impose the country's Western-backed government strict version of sharia law on the country.
article_snippet: An offensive launched last year by African Union forces along with militants has driven militants out of militants strongholds in central and southern Somalia, while a series of U.S. drone strikes have killed some of al-Shabaab top leaders.
article_snippet: Despite the military campaign, al-Shabaab has continued to strike back with often devastating effect using hit-and-run bomb and gun attacks in the capital Mogadishu and other towns.
article_snippet: al-Shabaab has also struck out at countries supporting the African Union mission.
highlights_snippet: Somalia's al Qaeda-linked group has claimed responsibility for the attack .