In the attack on the hotel and the popular Lido beach in the capital of Somalia Mogadishu on Friday evening, 32 people were killed and 63 were wounded, the police in that country announced today.
A police spokesman told reporters that one soldier was killed and one wounded in the attack last night, and that the rest were civilians.
Eyewitnesses said that an explosion was heard, followed by gunfire.
Al-Qaeda's branch in East Africa, al-Shabaab, said on its radio that its fighters had carried out the attack.
Lido Beach, a popular area in Mogadishu is full of people on Friday when Somalis go out for the weekend.
One eyewitness told the AP that he saw the attacker wearing an explosive vest moments before he blew himself up outside the hotel.
The eyewitness said that some of his friends who were with him in the hotel were killed and others were wounded.
Another eyewitness told AP that he saw many people lying on the ground and that he helped take some wounded people to the hospital.
Police and witnesses told AFP that a suicide bomber blew himself up last night on Lido Beach, which is frequented by businessmen and government officials. This luxury district with hotels and restaurants has already been the target of attacks in the past.
After the suicide bomber blew himself up, the attackers opened fire on the beach, the same sources said.
"Ruthless terrorists killed civilians at random," police officer Mohamed Omar told AFP today, adding that Somali security forces killed five members of the radical Islamist group Al-Shabaab.
The Lido Beach area has previously been targeted by militants linked to Al-Shabaab. In the most recent attack last year, nine people were killed.
The al-Shabaab group, a radical Islamist insurgent linked to al-Qaeda, has carried out numerous bombings and other attacks in the past in Mogadishu and several other areas in the volatile country. Although African Union forces drove them out of the capital in 2011, the rebels are still present in rural areas.
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