Somali troops yesterday took control of a hotel where extremist gunmen were holed up for more than 12 hours in an attack that has left at least 17 people dead.

Captain Mohamed Hussein said late yesterday the gunfire had stopped and security agents had accessed the whole building. Earlier he said the gunmen were believed to have occupied the third and fourth floor of the the Maka Al-Mukarramah hotel in the capital Mogadishu. Al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked Islamic extremist group that has carried out many attacks in Somalia, claimed responsibility for the assault on the hotel, which is popular with Somali government officials and foreigners.