**The Somali Islamist group al-Shabab has denied being responsible for a suicide attack in Mogadishu in which at least 22 people were killed.**Three government ministers were among those who died in the attack on the Shamo Hotel in the capital on Thursday.
Al-Shabab and other Islamists control much of Mogadishu and the country. They had been accused the bombing.
But a spokesman for the group said they believed the government had been responsible for the attack.
“We declare that al-Shabab did not mastermind that explosion,” Sheikh Ali Mohamud Rage told reporters.
“I had to step over their bodies to get out - people were screaming: ‘Is it a bomb Is it a bomb’”
Mohammed Olad Hassan
BBC reporter
Bomb attack: ‘Light turned to dark’
“We believe it is a plot by the government itself. It is not in the nature of al-Shabab to target innocent people.”
The spokesman said some government officials had left the hotel before the bomb went off, so it was “clear that they were behind the killing”.
He said the militants had only heard of the attack through media reports and had “sent condolences to the relatives of the victims”.
Presidential spokesman Hassan Haile had told the BBC on Thursday he believed the bomb was the work of al-Shabab.
The radical Islamist insurgent group, which wants to enforce a strict version of Islamic law in Somalia, is accused of having links to al-Qaeda.
It has previously carried out several suicide bombings on government targets and has immediately claimed responsibility.
No group has said it was behind Thursday’s attack.
‘National disaster’
Thursday’s explosion went off in a crowded meeting room at the hotel, where hundreds of people had gathered for a graduation ceremony of medical students.
Information Minister Dahir Mohamud Gelle said the male bomber had been dressed in women’s clothing, “complete with a veil and a female’s shoes”.
Officials said Health Minister Qamar Aden Ali, Education Minister Ahmed Abdulahi Waayeel and Higher Education Minister Ibrahim Hassan Addow were all killed, while Sports Minister Saleban Olad Roble was critically wounded.
At least two journalists were also among the dead but most of those killed were reported to have been students. More than 60 people were injured.
The BBC’s Mohammed Olad Hassan, who was at the scene, said it had been a “shocking, terrible scene”.
Somalia’s President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, has described the attack as a “national disaster”.
He described the victims as “dear citizens… unjustly assassinated while carrying out their duty to the nation”.
The hotel is often used by the few foreigners - aid workers, journalists and diplomats - who still visit Mogadishu.
Somalia has had no effective government for almost 20 years.
The blast happened in one of the small parts of the city controlled by the weak UN-backed government, just 1km (0.62 miles) from the K4 junction, where the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, Amisom, has a base.
Amisom’s acting head, Wafula Wamunyini, said the blast was “intended to intimidate and blackmail” government.
But in a statement, the AU said it would “not deter the resolve and determination of the African Union to support the people of Somalia in their quest for peace and reconciliation”.
The students had been graduating from Benadir University, which was set up in 2002 to train doctors to replace those who had fled overseas or been killed in the civil war.
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