Originally published on November 9th, 2013

A car bomb has killed 6 people outside a popular hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, on Friday. al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack, which killed four police officers, and according to one report, a high ranking Somali diplomat.

"We were behind the two explosions at the hotel," Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaab's military operations spokesman, told Reuters. "We targeted government officials and forces, and killed 15 of them."

A senior police officer said on Friday night at least six people, including four policemen, were killed when a car bomb went off outside the Hotel Maka, a popular meeting place for officials.

Mogadishu has often been the target of attacks by al Shabaab, an al Qaeda-aligned Islamist group that was driven out of the capital by African troops two years ago.

"We understand a car laden with explosives was parked in front of the hotel," Farah Aden, a senior police officer, told Reuters. "This car bomb exploded and burnt the other cars which were also parked there."

Four cars and two motorbikes were burnt out at the scene, a Reuters witness said. He saw three bodies of police men being carried away and described bits of human flesh scattered in the area.

In the September attack, al Shabaab rebels deployed a car bomb and suicide bomber, killing at least 15 people and wounding 23 others.

Al Shabaab have said they will keep up their campaign against the new government, after the Islamists were driven out of the capital in 2011 by an African Union force of peacekeepers.

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