At least seventeen dead in car bomb attack in Somalia's capital Mogadishu - report

At least seventeen people have died and several others injured in a car bomb attack outside a hotel in Somalia's capital city Mogadishu, according to media reports. The Al Qaeda-linked Islamist group al Shabaab, which is trying to topple Somalia’s weak U.N.-backed government, claimed responsibility for the attack. 

The attack comes just over a week after 26 people were killed and 56 injured in a 12-hour attack by Al-Shabaab jihadists on a popular hotel in the southern Somali port city of Kismayo. A suicide bomber rammed a vehicle loaded with explosives into the Medina hotel on Friday before several heavily armed gunmen forced their way inside, shooting as they went.

Somalia has been riven by civil war since 1991, when clan warlords overthrew a dictator, then turned on each other.