A car bomb exploded Wednesday at a top Mogadishu hotel that houses several MPs, killing several people, and was immediately followed by a gun battle, security sources and witnesses said.

A car bomb exploded Wednesday at a top Mogadishu hotel that houses several MPs, killing several people, and was immediately followed by a gun battle, security sources and witnesses said.

The explosion at the Ambassador Hotel on a busy road in the heart of the city was followed by a "complex attack", witnesses said, adding that a gun battle was raging, that security sources were inside the hotel and that several people had died.