Somalia-based armed group al-Shabab have claimed responsibility for the attack in Nairobi, Kenya on Tuesday.
“We are currently conducting an operation in Nairobi,” the group’s military operations spokesman told Al Jazeera.
Two explosions and gunfire were heard at an upscale hotel and office complex in Kenya‘s capital on Tuesday afternoon, said a woman working in a neighbouring building.
“We are under attack,” another person in an office inside a complex in the Dusit hotel told the Reuters news agency, then hung up. Local television showed smoke rising from the area.
The Nairobi police commander Philip Ndolo said they had cordoned off the area around Riverside Drive due to a suspected robbery.
The attack comes came a day after trial began in deadly Westgate mall attack case that left 67 people dead.
Kenyan prosecutors say the four suspects committed a “terrorist act” under Kenya’s anti-terrorism laws and used false documents. The men deny all the charges.
The country faced a spate of attacks after it sent its army into Somalia in October 2011 to fight the al-Qaeda-linked group.
Tuesday attack comes exactly three years after the armed group overrun a Kenyan army base in Somalia killing dozens soldiers.
On April 2, 2015, another al-Shabab attack killed 148 people at the university in Garissa, eastern Kenya.
Al Jazeera
