Al Shabaab Carries Out Deadly Assault On Somali's Parliament

Militants from the group al Shabaab launched a series of calculated, deadly attacks on Somalia's parliament on Saturday, Reuters reported.

Conflicting accounts place the death toll between four and seven people. Dozens more are feared killed.

The militants set off a car bomb outside parliament's gate in the capital Mogadishu, followed by a suicide bombing and an exchange of gunfire that lasted for hours.

Six of the attackers were killed. A soldier was also killed when he tried to stop the suicide bomber from entering the building, police Captain Mohamed Hussein said according to The Telegraph.

A police officer told Reuters he lost four colleagues.

"The terrorists have once again shown that they are against all Somalis, by killing our innocent brothers and sisters," Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed said according to Reuters. "These cowardly, despicable actions are not a demonstration of the true Islamic faith."

Al Shabaab, which has ties to al Qaeda, is the same group that killed 67 people at a shopping mall in Kenya last year.

Militants from the group announced they were behind Saturday's shootings and explosions at the heavily guarded parliament.

"We are behind the suicide bombing, explosions and the fighting inside the so-called Somali parliament house, and still heavy fighting is going on inside," said al Shabaab spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, Reuters reported.

The attack comes two years after the militants were expelled from the capital. The government is currently struggling to stabilize the country, which it has been unable to do since the end of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre's rule 20 years ago.

Members of parliament have called for current President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud to be impeached.

"The federal government is exercising no control," a Western diplomat based in the country told Reuters. "Those...in parliament will start asking questions: what is this guy achieving?"

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