AKIPRESS.COM - A suicide bomber rammed a truck rigged with explosives into the blast walls around one of Mogadishu’s most secure hotels, severely damaging the building and killing 12 people including a Kenyan diplomat and a Chinese embassy guard, Somalian and Chinese officials said.

Somalia’s Foreign Minister Abdisalam Omer told The Associated Press by phone from Djibouti that 20 people also were injured in the attack.

The attack was claimed by the al-Qaida-linked Al-Shabab group. The walled, luxury Jazeera Hotel is considered the most secure in Somalia’s capital and is frequented by diplomats, foreigners and visiting heads of state. The blast killed one armed guard at the Chinese embassy inside the hotel, as well as three embassy staffers, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said Monday in a statement online.

While blast destroyed at least eight rooms and stunned the residents of the Somali capital, it wasn’t as bad as it might have been because the truck, which contained a ton of explosives, was stopped at the blast walls outside the hotel.

In a statement, Al-Shabab said the attack was in retaliation for the deaths of dozens of civilians at the hands of Ethiopian forces, which are part of the AU force, and that the hotel was targeted because it hosts “Western” embassies coordinating the offensive.