Mogadishu: Somalia's internal security minister was among 10 people killed Thursday in a suicide bombing at a hotel in Beledweyne, north of the capital, management at the hotel who witnessed the blast said.
Hotel worker Ahmed Abdi said up to 13 people could have died in the attack, staged at the hotel where minister Omar Hashi Aden was staying with his entourage.
"His body is lying at the reception," he said.
Aden’s killing was the most high-profile political assassination in Somalia since insurgents stepped up a campaign against the wobbly administration of President Sharif Sheikh Ahmed on May 7.
Mohamed Abdi, a shopkeeper near the hotel, said smoke was rising from the building, government forces started shooting after the blast and body parts were scattered in the street.
Aden moved to Baladwayne at the start of June with heavily-armed troops in a bid to recapture more territory from hardline Islamist insurgents outside Mogadishu.
Islamist group Al Shabaab, which Washington says has links to Al Qaida and has hundreds of foreign fighters in its ranks, has been spearheading attacks on government forces.
A senior al Shabaab official said after a deadly suicide car bomb attack on a police headquarters in the capital on May 25 that there would be more suicide strikes in the coming days.