The Somali police said that at least five armed men have attacked security forces located outside the presidential palace in an alleged attempt to storm the heavily fortified residential and office complex, AFP reported. Security forces have arrived on the site and repelled the attack, reports say.
"We thought they were police but they started hurling grenades and firing us when they neared and so we exchanged fire at the gate of the hotel", a police officer told Reuters.
According to reports, three attackers have been killed in the gunfire. However, two others have reportedly taken positions at a nearby hotel parking lot.
The report comes amid close US cooperation with the Somali authorities in targeting terrorists. A day earlier, the US military conducted an airstrike and killed a member of the Al-Shabab terror group in the vicinity of Saakow.
In September, Al-Shabab militants attacked a US military base in southern Somalia. In response to the attack, US forces killed 10 Al-Shabab militants in two airstrikes and destroyed one vehicle.
Somalia has been engulfed in violence since the eruption of a civil war between clan-based armed groups in the early 1990s. The situation has been further complicated by Al-Shabab militants, who have staged numerous attacks across the country in an attempt to impose a radical version of Sharia law in the nation.
