One police officer was killed while two civilians injured Friday after a car bomb went off outside the popular City Plaza Hotel in Mogadishu, police and witnesses said.
City Plaza hotel is frequented by Somali government officials and local business people as well as Somalis from the diaspora.
"The car bomb exploded outside the hotel. One policeman died of injuries sustained. Two civilians in the vicinity were also wounded," police officer, Harun Nur told Xinhua.
The site of the explosion is close to the headquarters of the Somalia national intelligence and security agency.
It was not immediately clear who the target of the attack was or who carried it out but the radical Islamic group of Al-Shabaab carry out similar attack in the past.
Witnesses said senior government security officials were at a building close to the hotel when the explosion occurred.
The Al-Qaeda-linked militants have recently increased its attacks on government targets.
The group last week attacked the Somali parliament where lawmakers were holding a meeting. Twelve people were killed including five militant who carried out the attack.
Al-Shabaab has been driven out of much of southern and Central Somalia but control few pockets of largely rural areas where they organize and launch their attacks against Somali government and forces of African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).