Gunmen stormed into a hotel in the Somali capital on Tuesday morning and kidnapped two French men who were working for the military, officials said. The manager of the Sahafi Hotel in Mogadishu said the men had registered as reporters, but a senior Somali government official said they were in Somalia to train government soldiers. A Western security official also confirmed they worked for the military. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.They were abducted after about 10 gunmen arrived at the hotel in a small car and a pickup truck mounted with machine guns and disarmed the hotel guards, said Abdi Mohamed Ahmed, who owns a teashop in front of the hotel. The manager, Mohamed Hassan Gafaa, said several gunmen went door-to-door inside the hotel until they found the foreign men, whom he did not identify. "The gunmen then sped away with their hostages," Ahmed told The Associated Press. Police said they found one of the kidnappers' cars several hours after the kidnapping.
The French embassy in Nairobi had no immediate comment.