The al-Qaeda-linked armed group al-Shabab claimed responsibility for a deadly attack on Wednesday on the international airport complex outside the Somali capital, Mogadishu.

Two of the attackers were killed in a firefight with security forces, Somali Police Commissioner Gen. Abdi Hassan Hijar told the Somali National News Agency.

The Reuters news agency citing a diplomatic security memo, said two security guards, thought to be Kenyan nationals and a Somali policeman, were also killed in the incident, while four others were wounded.

Attackers did not get into the airport

The attack happened at the heavily fortified Halane base at the Aden Adde International Airport that hosts peacekeepers, the offices of UN organizations, and diplomatic missions.

Police said al-Shabaab militants began shooting indiscriminately at one of the entrances to the site. Al Shabaab said it had also fired mortars into the camp.

Somalia was already on edge because elections, already postponed several times, were underway.

Al-Shabab frequently carries out attacks in the capital and elsewhere in the country against civilian, military, and government targets.

The group controlled Mogadishu until 2011, when AU troops pushed it out, but they still hold territory in the countryside.

lo,tj /wmr (Reuters, AFP)