Al-Shabaab fighters have seized control of a hotel in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, in a hail of gunfire and explosions, and several casualties have been reported. The assault on the Hayat Hotel triggered a fierce gunfight between security forces and gunmen from the jihadist group, who were still inside the building, said security official Abdukadir Hassan. “A huge blast went off a few minutes before the gunmen forced their way into the hotel,” he said. “We don’t have the details so far, but there are casualties, and the security forces are now engaging with the enemy who are holed up inside the building,” he added. Witnesses said a second blast occurred outside the hotel a few minutes after the first, inflicting casualties on rescuers, members of the security forces and civilians who had rushed to the scene after the first explosion. “The area is cordoned off now and there is exchange of gunfire between the security forces and the gunmen,” said one witness, Mohamed Salad. The al-Qaida-linked jihadist group, which has been waging a deadly insurgency against Somalia’s fragile central government for about 15 years, claimed responsibility. “A group of al-Shabaab attackers forcibly entered Hotel Hayat in Mogadishu. The fighters are carrying out random shooting inside the hotel,” the group said in a brief statement on a pro-Shabaab website. The Hayat Hotel is a popular venue with lawmakers and other government officials. Earlier this week, the US announced that its forces had killed 13 al-Shabaab fighters in an air strike in the central-southern part of the country as the Islamist militants were attacking Somali forces. The US has carried out several air raids on the militants in strikes in recent weeks. In May, President Joe Biden ordered the reestablishment of a US troop presence in Somalia to help local authorities combat al-Shabaab, reversing a decision by his predecessor, Donald Trump, to withdraw most US forces. Fighters from the group have also recently waged attacks on the Somalia-Ethiopia border, raising concerns about a possible new strategy by the Islamist militants. Somalia’s new president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, said last month that ending the insurgency required more than a military approach, but that his government would negotiate with the group only when the time was right. Al-Shabaab fighters were driven out of the capital in 2011 by an African Union force, but the group still controls swaths of countryside and has the capacity to wage deadly strikes on civilian and military targets. Earlier this month, Somalia’s new prime minister, Hamza Abdi Barre, announced the appointment of the group’s former deputy leader and spokesman, Muktar Robow, as religion minister. Robow, 53, publicly defected from al-Shabaab in August 2017. The US government at one point offered a $5m bounty for his capture. Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for similar attacks in the past. In August 2020, it said it was behind an attack on another hotel in Mogadishu in which at least 16 people were killed.