Somalia hotel siege death toll rises to 10, says police officer

The death toll from an al Shabaab attack on a hotel in central Somalia where clan leaders were meeting on Tuesday has risen to 10 and most of the victims were civilians, a police officer in the town said on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, attackers from the al Qaeda-linked group struck the hotel in Beledweyne with a car bomb before its gunmen entered the hotel and engaged in a day-long siege with government forces trying to flush them out.

Clan elders from the Hiran region had gathered in the hotel for a meeting to discuss ways of countering al Shabaab before the attack, which the Islamist militant group claimed responsibility for.

A clan elder had earlier put the death toll at seven.

"The siege was concluded last night at midnight. Four attackers blew themselves up and the other two attackers were shot dead," Maj Nur Aden, a police officer, told Reuters from Beledweyne, which is also the region's capital.

"Ten people died in the hospital including elders and soldiers, mostly civilians," he said.

A resident who lives next to the hotel, Ahmed Ismail, said gunfire had died down at around midnight.

Al Shabaab often conducts bomb and gun attacks in the fragile Horn of Africa nation as part of a campaign launched nearly two decades ago to topple the government and establish its own rule based on its strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Al Shabaab said in a statement its fighters had killed 20 people including soldiers and elders. It gave no details of its own casualties. The numbers it gives often differ from those of officials and residents.