Somali Ambassador to UN Killed in Attack on Mogadishu Hotel

The ambassador of Somalia to the UN Geneva office, Yusuf Mohamed Ismail Bari-Bari, was killed in an attack on a Mogadishu hotel in the Somali capital of Mogadishu.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The ambassador of Somalia to the UN Geneva office, Yusuf Mohamed Ismail Bari-Bari, was killed in an attack on a Mogadishu hotel, local freelance journalists said on Twitter.

Earlier media reports claimed that the al-Shabaab militant group killed nine people and injured 11 in an attack on a hotel in the Somalian capital.

Ambassador Yusuf Mohamed Ismail Bari-Bari, Somalia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Office at Geneva killed at pic.twitter.com/pM6Lz2secD

— HornafricMedia (@Hornafricmedia) March 27, 2015

The clashes between Somalian Special Forces and the militants are still going on in the vicinity of the hotel, according to media.

The attack started earlier Friday when a car bomb went off near the entrance of the Maka al-Mukarama Hotel, popular with government officials and local lawmakers. A second blast was heard inside the hotel after the militants entered it.

Al-Shabaab, a militant group linked to international terrorist organization al-Qaeda, violently took over most of southern Somalia in 2006, expanding its insurgency and carrying out frequent gunfire and suicide attacks.